


migration

by parsnipit



Series: birds [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Drug Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Organized Crime, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Physical Abuse, and for two screwed-up kids they're doing pretty good, but they're trying!!, gamzee and karkat may not be the epitome of healthy relationships in this fic, honestly just an excuse for egregious pale porn w plot, in some ways, john just wants his cagey angsty alien friends to be okay, just as bad as Alternia, not in the main relationship tho!!, the one where they travel to earth and find out it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-01-12 17:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 170,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18451313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parsnipit/pseuds/parsnipit
Summary: Your name is Karkat Vantas and you're going to die in three sweeps. You've come to (very bitter) terms with this, but your moirail has not. The solution? Immigrate illegally to Earth, home of your hatefriends, and join an unsavory gang that may or may not be constructing a highblood army against the will of the Alternian Empire. (In the meantime, you will also integrate yourself into a clade, pity your moirail to world's end, and discover that you're never as trapped as you think you are—especially when there are people who love you.)





	1. floating fish (and the places they'd go)

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to "migration"!!! this is the first book in what's probably going to be a series; it's already been completely written out and is currently undergoing editing, so chapters should be uploaded approximately once a week. additional warnings (for triggers in specific chapters) will be posted in the author's note at the beginning of their respective chapters. each chapter also has a musical track (or two) that relates to it, which will be posted in the author's note if you want to take a listen (some songs could be vaguely spoiler-y for the chapter, though). you can find me on tumblr as [parsnipit](https://parsnipit.tumblr.com/) if you have any questions or just want to chat! please enjoy the fic! :D (and happy 4/13!!!)
> 
> warnings for this chapter: animal death, a liiiittle bit of gore (the butchering of aforementioned animal), children coming to terms with their imminent death because Alternia sucks
> 
> chapter track: "cough syrup" by young the giant

You prowl forward like the fucking badass hunter that you are, stepping carefully around broken branches and dry leaves. Your prey grazes mere feet in front of you—an antlered hoofbeast with dappled gray fur and glistening black eyes. You flare your nostrils and drop your jaw some, sucking warm air into your mouth. It tastes like damp fur, sour clouds, and crushed grass. There’s not a hint of troll-scent to be found, which means your hunting partner is still downwind, and with that knowledge you strike.

You leap forward with a wild yell and the hoofbeast startles, jerking its head up and lunging forward. It crashes through the brambles, kicking wildly, and you surge after it. You’re careful to avoid the sharp points of its flailing hooves as you chase it, although you _do_ get close enough to swing your sickle at its heels, determined to drive it in the right direction—and you must succeed, because you suddenly see a flash of movement and hear a dull _thump._ The hoofbeast freezes, tottering on its feet, and bawls weakly for a few brief seconds before you see another blur of movement and its skull shatters and its brain goes—well, kind of everywhere.

“That is—absolutely disgusting,” you decide, flicking a piece of gaudy red goop off your forearm and into the bracken. The hoofbeast collapses at your feet. “You have the least hunting finesse of any troll I’ve ever had the horrific misfortune to murder an animal with. Congratulations.”

“Aw, shit, bro, ain’t nothin’ but a thing,” Gamzee says, grinning sleepily at you and shaking brains and (bright red, hck) blood off of his club. “And anyway, we up and caught us some fine dinner, didn’t we? Don’t see that it matters much how it looks—it’s all gonna look the same comin’ out, anyway.” He chortles at that—he’s genuinely entertained by his own shitty shit jokes, _honestly._

You huff a stream of exasperated air upwards, blowing your bangs off of your forehead for a brief moment before they flop back down into your eyes. You shake your head vigorously and kneel next to the hoofbeast—at least Gamzee had the decency to shatter one of the few parts of the creature you weren’t going to eat. After quickly examining it for any obvious diseases or parasites—you’ll have to examine the meat itself more thoroughly back at the hive—you captchalogue the carcass and wipe your hands clean on the foliage.

“Alright. C’mon, asshole,” you say, standing and stretching yourself out. You reach your fingers up towards the tallest branches in the forest, arching your back, confident that you’re in a safe enough place to risk leaving your stomach briefly unguarded. You don’t hear or smell anything bigger than a nibblevermin close by, besides Gamzee, and you know he wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. In fact, you know he _likes_ seeing you unguarded, and—yep. He’s watching you with fervent eyes, so you flash him a smug grin before dropping your arms. “Let’s get back to the hive before it starts to rain.”

Gamzee’s jaw loosens, and you hear him breathe the air into his mouth. “Sure does taste like rain, don’t it?” he asks, captchaloguing his clubs. He offers you his hand and you— _after_ making sure there’s no blood or brain or bone stuck to it because, again, fucking _gross_ —slip your fingers into his and tug him along through the forest. “Ain’t that a miracle, brother? That water all fallin’ from the sky, like the ocean up and decided to swap sides for a day. You think there’s fish swimmin’ in the clouds, where we can’t see ‘em?”

“I absolutely do not think that,” you inform him, picking your way between several enormous, black-barked trees until you reach a well-worn trail. “I think that’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. They’d all just fall back down with the rain.”

“Well, maybe not,” Gamzee protests lazily, and you feel him shortening his stride so he can stay behind you, let you guide him along. God, fuck, but you pity him so _much,_ even if you think sometimes he’s the stupidest troll on Alternia. (He’s not. He’s _definitely_ not, but sometimes, most times, it’s easier to think he is.) “What if they had powers like what the bitchin’ fleet has? Powers enough to keep ‘em floatin’ around out there, eatin’ and fuckin’ and killin’ until they die.”

“If they had that power, why the hell would they ever come back to Alternia just to float in the clouds for a few hours?” you ask, scowling. “If _I_ had that power, I’d never come back to this shithole of a planet.”

“Where would you go?” Gamzee asks, squeezing your hand. His claws brush your knuckles—they’re getting ragged again. You need to trim them, since god knows he won’t do it himself. “If you were a fish, I mean—a fish what could swim in the clouds all the time and never fall down.”

“Mm—somewhere far away, as far away as I could. I’d live all alone—except for my moirail, of course,” you add, when you feel Gamzee’s fingers shift nervously between yours. “My dumb fish moirail and I, we’d have this great big hive. It would be the biggest hive in the whole goddamn universe, with tons of land around it—all ours. And we would never be hungry, because there’d always be something to hunt. We’d have two lusii, too, and they’d never ever leave, not unless we told them to. They’d always be there to watch the hive and make sure we were safe, but they wouldn’t boss us around or try to get us to do shit we didn’t want to do. The drones would never come to conscript us or cull us.” You sigh wistfully, glancing up at the thick, dark clouds above you. “It’d be perfect.”

Gamzee glances up with you. “You think so, best friend?” he asks, his voice quieter than usual. “You hate this place so much?”

You shrug. The rain begins to drizzle against your face and shoulders, and you pick up the pace until you’re jogging along the trail—use the exercise as an excuse not to answer him. You know he doesn’t hate Alternia the way you do. Why would he? He’s a highblood. Life is good. Except—

Except, well, it’s not. Not for either of you. Maybe he understands your hatred of Alternia more than you’d like to think.

By the time you get back to the beach, the rain has soaked through your hair and clothes and leaks into your mouth and eyes. It’s sour against your teeth, and it stings when you blink. Behind you, Gamzee sneezes. You groan. “Oh, don’t _tell_ me you’re getting sick,” you say, looking reproachfully at him. “You haven’t even been in the rain for more than ten minutes. Don’t you and your shitty immune system _dare.”_

Gamzee rubs one of his eyes—that, combined with the acidic rain, smears his paint all over his face _and_ his hand. He’s got a talent for being a mess, your moirail. A pitiable mess, but a mess all the same. “Okay, bro,” he agrees placidly, offering you a crooked smile. “I’ll pass that piece of holy wisdom along to the ol’ immune system for you.”

“You’d better,” you say. The two of you pad across the beach, your shoes sinking into the dark sand as you head for Gamzee’s hive. The lights inside are warm and inviting, and you duck into the foyer as soon as you reach it. Gamzee hesitates. You wait for a second—let him look out at the desolate seashore, where the world’s shittiest lusus isn’t—before you tug him inside. He lets you.

As soon as you’re out of the rain, you give yourself a good hard _shake,_ splattering the walls with water droplets before beginning to tug your soggy shoes off. Gamzee plops his bony ass down on the floor and does the same. “Hey, you up for some motherfuckin’ ablutions, best friend?” he asks, glancing over at you through his mass of damp curls. “This brother’s feelin’ all kindsa sour and chilly.”

And how can you possibly say no to that _face?_ It’s streaked with messy greasepaint, ears and cheeks flushed purple and hair sticking out in every possible direction. It’s absolutely pitiful. _He’s_ absolutely pitiful and holy fuck you are horns over heels for this stupid troll and he’s going to be the death of you and quite honestly, at this moment, you can think of no better way to go. You’re a broken troll.

Still. You’re a broken troll with an _image_ to maintain.

“Oh, gee,” you say, trying to make your voice as scathing as possible—which is more difficult than usual, because _Gamzee._ You reach out and poke the tip of his chilly nose with a claw. “I wonder why you could possibly feel that way? I just can’t seem to fathom it.”

“Well, I got my think on that it’s the rain makin’ a brother feel like this,” Gamzee explains Very Seriously and Solemnly, although there’s a gleam of ever-present amusement in his eyes.

“The rain?” you ask, feigning Great Surprise as you stand up. You haul Gamzee up after you—he’s already got almost a head of height on you, but he sure as hell doesn’t weigh more. He’s all bone, all raggedy, lean muscle—oh, and a _whole_ lotta hair. You think his hair alone constitutes half of his body mass. “Whatever makes you think that, hm? The rain’s always so warm and sweet. It’s not like it freezes your bulge off every single time you go out in it. It’s not like it’s made of _literal acid.”_

Gamzee laughs, shaking his hair out of his eyes—it falls right back into them, but it’s the thought that counts, you suppose. “Now you’re just bein’ silly, brother, c’mon. Acid rain? On _my_ peaceful, safe motherfuckin’ planet?” He winks at you. “That’s a joke worthy of the mirthful messiahs, my main motherfucker. But I _did_ get my hear on of one little fact—” He crooks a finger at you. You obligingly lean in, eyebrows arched. “That rain tends to make little hotblooded brothers chillier than what’s healthy—their moirails gotta get a hand on helping ‘em warm their little-bitty selves up.”

Yep. There goes your face. _Burning._ Fuck him, seriously—

“Let a brother help you out, Karkat?” Gamzee looks at you through gleaming, half-lidded eyes, bringing a hand up to cup your chin. His pupils are wide and dark in his gray irises. Oh, wow, look at that. The burning’s spreading down your neck. He keeps his fingers on your face, guiding you back towards the ablutions block with the lightest of pressures. “You know I got a love of it. Taking care of you, gettin’ you all warm and safe and snug for me—makes a brother feel real pale for his littlest friend. Havin’ you all happy and clean and wrapped up in my arms—” A full-throated purr rumbles from him and oh shit now your shoulders are burning.

“I—you—shit, fuck,” you say, very intelligently.

Gamzee chuckles, leaning forward to kiss the tip of your nose. “I’ll take that as a yes, best friend. Arms up, now—” He coaxes your arms up so he can pull your jacket off, followed by your shirt, and then helps you shimmy out of your pants and boxers. And you (flustered though you may be, you’re determined _not_ to be a negligent moirail) grouch at him until he lets you divest him of his wet, cold clothes, too.

“This warm enough?” Gamzee asks, holding his fingers in the stream of water from the ablutions trap after he starts it. You stick a hand into the stream above his—it’s pleasantly warm, and your traitorous body shivers happily at the feeling. Gamzee looks knowingly at you, the world’s sappiest smile on his dumb cute face.

“It’s not too hot for you, is it?” you ask. You know that what’s warm to you is often hot to him, the damned coldblood—you’re familiar with what temperatures he enjoys, at this point, but it never hurts to double-check.

Gamzee shakes his head, bringing a big hand up and resting it on your side. He steers you into the ablutions trap with that same light, insistent pressure. “Not at all,” he assures you, once you duck into the stream. You sigh in relief as the water washes away the stinging chill of the rain. “It’s just perfect. It always motherfuckin’ is.” He cards a hand through your hair, and you refuse to believe that he’s talking about anything other than the water.

“Get in, then,” you insist, tugging on his hand. “We both have to get cleaned up before we can eat—and I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking _starving.”_

“Mm, I’m all in agreement with that feeling, brother.” He ducks into the trap with you, and he takes up most of the room with his gangly limbs, but if you tuck yourself close to him you can make it work. You doubt it’ll work much longer if he keeps growing at this rate, though—although you won’t live to see him pupate, so you suppose it’s not your problem, even if you _want_ it to be your problem. You want all of his problems to be your problems. You and him, together against the world or what-the-fuck-ever. You just—you want him. You want to live with him.

You want to live.

“Put your head down, let me get your hair,” you instruct Gamzee before he can look too closely at your face and the scowl you’re sure is etching itself into your features. Gamzee obediently ducks his head and you massage a copious amount of shampoo into his ridiculous curls. Once you’ve worked the shampoo into a lather, you rub your claws in soothing circles across his scalp, your chest warming as you see him relaxing beneath your touch. The undercoat of his hair is soft and thick beneath your fingers, an absolute contrast to the wiry texture of his curls, and you make sure every last strand is coated in shampoo. “Okay, head back. Keep your eyes closed.”

Gamzee tilts his head back, exposes the whole arch of his throat to you, and your breath hitches. You don’t even bother trying to resist the temptation and brush the pads of your fingers—gently, gently, as gently as you can—across his neck. He chirrs softly at you. Doesn’t even bother to open an eye and look at you, and you are sick with love for this scrawny, fucked-up troll.

You rinse the shampoo from his hair and replace it with an absolutely horrifying amount of conditioner before beginning to ease the tangles out with your fingers. He winces on occasion, but for the most part, it’s a smooth process—you’ve had a sweep of practice to perfect it. Once his mess of curls has been dealt with, you cup a hand over his eyes and rinse his hair out again. “There,” you declare, pushing his sodden bangs out of his eyes. “Done with your hair. Can you hand me the hide soap, now?”

Gamzee twists around to snag the bottle of hide soap, offering it to you. “And then I’m gonna do you, best friend. Get you all nice ‘n squeaky clean for me, my tiniest, most motherfucking perfect diamond,” he says, as you begin to lather up a washcloth with the soap. Your blush—which had _almost_ died off—resurges, and you hiss petulantly at him. He laughs, ruffling your hair. “Aw, hey, it’s okay, motherfucker. Chill. I’m gonna take _good_ care of you, don’t you worry.”

You’re not worried about _that._ You know Gamzee will take good care of you—doesn’t he always? You just—well, you nothing. Maybe you’re just looking for excuses to feel angry. It feels safer that way. Familiar.

You grumble wordlessly at him, moving the washcloth across his face, making sure to get behind his ears. You have to pause to rinse greasepaint off of the washcloth every two seconds, but it’s worth it, to see his unpainted face—open and vulnerable and the sweetest fucking thing on Alternia. For a minute, you just cup his jaw in your hand, rubbing your thumb across his cheek. A faint flush simmers just beneath his skin, and you lean forward and kiss the tip of his nose before resting your foreheads together.

“You’re beautiful,” you inform him, because you are the master romancer, it’s you. His flush darkens, to your immense satisfaction. “With or without your paint. You know that, right?”

Gamzee closes his eyes and whines at you, and _ha,_ now who’s the flustered one?

“Yeah, you are,” you murmur, half to yourself. You hum softly and scratch your nails lightly beneath his chin. He leans into your hand, nuzzling against your palm. Cracks an eye open to look at you, and you trail your fingers lightly across the dark shadows beneath that eye. “The most beautiful diamond on Alternia.”

“You ‘n me, bro,” Gamzee says, his voice soft and warm. “You ‘n me both, we have the most beautiful diamond in the whole motherfuckin’ multiverse. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

“Me neither. I’m so pale for you it’s fucking stupid.” You look at him, moon-eyed like the sappy dumbass you are, then reluctantly shift your hand away from his face. As much as you love piling, the ablutions trap is not the ideal place for it. You smooth the washcloth across the rest of his skin, over his arms and chest and stupidly long legs. You take special care to scrub between each of his toes and fingers, then rub the cloth across his broad back and knobbly spine. The delicate spots between his legs are next, and you wash those gingerly, but no less thoroughly. Once you’re done, you dunk the washcloth underneath the water to rinse it out.

“All finished, brother?” Gamzee asks, peeking up hopefully at you. “Can a motherfucker get his rinse on now?”

“Yeah.” You stretch up to move the ablutions’ head, redirecting the stream of warm water towards him. He shimmies under it, rinsing suds from his skin and enfolding you in his arms at the same time. You lean your head against one scrawny bicep, watching him through lazy, half-lidded eyes. It’s so peaceful here, with him. It’s always so peaceful. No reasons for you to be angry, not really. Sometimes you wish you could stay here forever.

Then you remember that you’re a mutant freak and you’re going to die in three sweeps, when the imperial drones come for you. You guess there’s always a reason for you to be angry, no matter where you are. Ah, well.

“Let a brother help you clean up, Karbro?” Gamzee says, resting a hand in your hair. You hum your acceptance to him, suddenly too tired to think of anything witty or scathing enough to reply with. Thinking about your impending death tends to do that to you. Gamzee must notice, but for the moment, he doesn’t say anything—he simply dips his head and presses a kiss to your cheek, reaching for the shampoo. “Yeah. You just rest a while, brother. I’ll take care of you, now, it’s alright.”

You nuzzle lazily against him as he begins to massage the shampoo into your hair. He lingers longer than he needs to, really, rubbing his fingers in firm circles across your scalp and scratching behind your ears. You want to protest, but it feels so _nice_ and you’re so tired and you don’t want to die because then you’ll miss out on _this—_

Gamzee tips your head back, cupping a hand across your eyes as he rinses the shampoo from your hair. The air smells clean and sharp. He begins to knead conditioner in next, scraping his claws lightly across your scalp and through the strands of your hair until you’re sure there’s a mountain of frothy bubbles on your head. Only then does he begin to rinse it out with the same slow, careful movements. Not a single bit of soap gets into your eyes.

“Theeere we go,” Gamzee murmurs, scratching along the side of your jaw. You yawn, and he rubs a finger along your bottom lip. You resist the temptation to nip him—but just barely. “Hair’s all done, little diamond. Just a couple more minutes and we’ll have you all nice ‘n tidy.”

“Better hurry,” you warn him, lifting one hand and squinting at the wrinkles on your fingertips. “I’m getting all soggy. Ick.”

Gamzee chuckles, lathering the washcloth up with fresh soap and beginning to carefully clean your face. “Well, we can’t have that, now. We’d just have to throw you in the dryer what with all these soggy clothes, I guess. Get you all motherfuckin’ toasty warm and dried out.” You snort, your ears flicking as Gamzee cleans them because it fucking _tickles._ “How’s that up and sound, my best brother?”

“It sounds hideously awful,” you say, as adamantly as you can when you’re snuggled up against your moirail as he rubs a washcloth in slow, fucking _fantastic_ circles across your back and shoulders. “Dumbass. I’d probably melt.”

“Can’t be any hotter in the dryer than it is in that miracle blood of yours,” Gamzee protests, leaning back to wash your chest and stomach and arms. “Must be the hottest goddamn thing in the world, that blood, all full of fire and shit.”

“Mm, it’s hardly worth that poetic imagery.” You lean back against the trap wall when he nudges at you, letting him clean your legs and feet. “There’s nothing that special about it.”

“Well, sure there is, best friend.” Gamzee moves up, washing carefully between your legs, and you do your best not to clamp them shut even though washing there fucking tickles, too. “It’s the only blood of its color in the whole goddamn world. That’s pretty motherfuckin’ miraculous, if you ask me.”

“Everything is miraculous if I ask you,” you say, wrinkling your nose at him as he eases you back under the spray to rinse. “Besides, I’m definitely not the only thing with this shitty blood. Every single beast on this goddamned planet has it.”

You have the blood of a beast, and you’ll die just like one, too. Fucking fantastic.

“Hey, now.” A frown flickers across Gamzee’s face, and he brings his hand up to cup your chin. You blow water off of your lips and fumble to turn the spray off once the suds on your skin are gone. “Don’t you be comparing my most miraculous of brothers with any lowly beast. There’s a world of difference there, Karkat. An absolute world—fuck, a universe. You ain’t no animal, and I’m sure as hell not gonna let anybody call you one, ‘specially not yourself.”

You scowl at him because that’s _stupid_ and _romantic_ and you’re _blushing again goddamnit._ You don’t respond—nip at his fingers, instead, and he lets you. Lets you nibble at each rough, dark pad with your dull teeth, like he hasn’t the slightest fear of you biting. Your stomach flutters at the thought. He trusts you. He trusts you so much it just about makes you fucking sick.

“You’re a sappy shitstain,” you grouch at him, pressing a soft kiss to the palm of his hand before standing up and snagging a towel. You toss it into his face with a light _whump,_ and it hooks on his horns. He shakes his head, whining petulantly as you begin to rub his hair and face dry. “Hold still—we gotta get dried off so we can eat, yeah? Don’t you wanna eat?”

Gamzee makes a little excited gasping sound at the reminder of food and stills beneath you, letting you dry the rest of him off without protest. He dries you off once you’re done with him, hands gentle and slow, and you find yourself leaning into his touch again. You can’t even bother pretending to be aloof and angry—and besides, what’s the point? It’s just you two here. Just the two of you, against the whole entire fucking world.

“There we go, bro,” Gamzee says, tossing the towel in the general direction of your laundry hamper. “Can we go get our munch on now? My stomach’s startin’ to rumble somethin’ fierce.”

“Mm, yeah—I’ll start prepping the carcass. We need clothes, though. It’s too cold to be walking around naked.” And, since both of you had been impatient and too busy flirting with each other to _think,_ you haven’t brought any clothes into the bathroom. You sigh. “Right. I’ll go get them, you—”

“Nah, I got ‘em,” Gamzee says, stepping out of the tub. He holds a hand behind your shoulder as you climb out after him, like he’s afraid you’re going to fall, and _honestly,_ even your lusus doesn’t treat you like such a fucking wiggler. “You can get on prepping that fine-ass carcass before we both wither away from hungerin’.”

You snort—you’re certainly not going to wither away anytime soon, but you think your beanpole of a moirail might not be so lucky. “Alright, alright. Go get some clothes—clean ones, preferably. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Gamzee slips off towards his respiteblock, humming cheerfully, while you abscond to the kitchen. You wipe down the table—god knows what’s been on it—and set out two plates, along with silverware. You also pick one of Gamzee’s sharpest kitchen knives and rinse it off; once you’ve finished that, Gamzee slips into the kitchen, already dressed. His shirt’s on backwards, but you’ll take what you can get.

“Here you go, little invertebrother,” he says, beaming at you and handing you a mound of your clothes. You yank them on, then peek outside. The rain still splatters from the sky, and you wrinkle your nose.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay? Stay in here—I don’t need you getting soaking wet again.” You snag his jacket (big and black and cozy) off of the rack next to the door, pulling it on and flipping the hood up over your head. Gamzee makes a little sound of protest behind you, but you’re out of the door before he can speak. You quickly decaptchalogue the hoofbeast carcass, skinning and gutting it with brutal and practiced efficiency. You toss the skin out onto the sand—you’ll deal with it tomorrow—and captchalogue most of the organs again, then slice the meat into smaller and more manageable parts.

Once you’ve finished that bloody work—and it never gets any less sickening, seeing your garish red color slicking your hands and arms—you duck back into the hive. Gamzee slouches at the table, scooping sopor out of one of his stupid pies with his fingers. You wrap and store the organs and most of the meat in the deep thermal hull, where Gamzee can snack on it throughout the week, but set a single haunch in the sink.

“How do you want it cooked?” you ask, sawing off a small slab of the meat and carefully examining it for parasites. Gamzee lifts his head, his nostrils flaring at the scent of lukewarm blood. Once you’ve decided the meat is safe, you toss the slab in Gamzee’s general direction. He lunges for it, and you hear the heavy snap of his jaws as he catches it.

“Mm, however you want it is chill with me,” Gamzee says, his voice muffled through his mouthful of meat as he scarfs it down.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” you remind him absently, focusing on the meat again. You set out a skillet and begin heating it, slicing off several thin strips of the haunch and setting them in to cook. For all the effort you went through to set out plates, they don’t get used even a single time. Once Gamzee’s finished the first slab of meat, he drifts closer to you, looming over your shoulder and snuffling at the scent gland beneath your jaw like the nasty (and adorable) goat-troll he is.

You end up feeding him the meat directly from the skillet—as soon as a slice is warmed, you scoop it out with your claws and toss it back to him. He snaps it out of the air, and you shiver, hearing the clack of those enormous highblood fangs behind you. That’s your boy. That’s your highblood. It gives you a sort of visceral satisfaction, getting to take care of him like this. He gobbles up the first few slices without complaint, but when you toss him the forth slice, he catches it and nudges your shoulder.

“What?” you ask, flipping over another slice so both sides cook evenly.

“A brother needs to eat, too,” Gamzee mumbles through the meat held gingerly between his teeth. “Here. Take this one.”

Your ears twitch in giddy embarrassment, but you _are_ hungry, and you’re not selfless enough to turn down fresh, warm meat. So, dutifully ignoring the burn in your cheeks (which is growing _far_ too familiar tonight), you lean in and snatch the meat from his mouth. Press a tiny kiss to his lips as you do, too, then toss your head back to get the meat between your teeth and chew. If you’d tried to take food from any other troll that way (or tried to take food from another troll _period)_ , you’d get your throat slit for your troubles. But Gamzee is your moirail, and you trust him as much as he trusts you.

At least you’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?

Gamzee chitters at you, low and slow and pleased, and you headbutt him in the chin.

The rest of dinner follows the same way—you trade off slices until almost half of the haunch is gone and your belly is full and warm. Gamzee stretches leisurely, slumping back at the table and pulling his half-finished pie closer again. You wag the knife lazily in his direction. “Don’t eat too much of that.”

It’s as far as you’ll go, right now. You don’t want Gamzee to rely on sopor, fuck, of course you don’t—but he’s not ready to let go of it, and you know if you push it’ll only backfire. It has before. And, you must admit, you’re not ready, either. Makes you sick to think it—you’re selfish and awful and terrible and deserve to be eaten by maggots while wallowing in a pit of self-loathing and despair—but you think it anyway. You don’t know Gamzee, without the sopor, but you know highbloods. They’re violent and cruel and fucking _insane._ You hope Gamzee isn’t like that. You’d like to think he isn’t. You’re afraid he is—and for once in your shitty fucking life, you don’t want to be proven right.

You rinse the beast’s blood from your hands, then wash the skillet and put away the plates. Gamzee washes out his pie tin, once he’s scraped it clean, and then drapes himself over you. Nestles his chin in between your horns and yawns. The sun is starting to peek over the horizon, bathing the far wall in pale golds and reds.

“You ready to get our rest on, bro?” Gamzee asks, nuzzling absently against one of your horns and sending lazy shivers down your spine. “I sure as hell am. Huntin’ makes a motherfucker real tired.”

You reach up, patting his cheeks. “Yeah. C’mon.” You lead him into his respiteblock and strip down to your boxers. He does the same, climbing into his ‘coon—it’s a red coon, you’d noticed long ago, the same color as his husktop. Rusty red, sure, but they didn’t very well make ‘coons or husktops in your freakish color, did they? You’re determined to see it as little piece of serendipity. (The fact that you may have a purple ‘coon and husktop helps, too.)

Gamzee opens his arms for you, and you climb into his ‘coon after him, snuggling up against his chest because you’re tired and shameless and you’re dying in three sweeps and you aren’t going to miss out on a day of pale cuddles because you were _embarrassed._ You rest your head against Gamzee’s shoulder and he turns his nose into the crook of your neck. “Good morning, best friend,” he murmurs softly, voice muffled through the sopor but no less affectionate.

You close your eyes, relax in his arms. You’re safe. As long as you’re with him, everything feels safe and like it might just, somehow, be okay—at least for these last three sweeps. “Good morning, Gamzee.”


	2. a hornlock proper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: discussions of death, culling
> 
> chapter track: "dear romeo" by faceless boy.

You wake up way too motherfuckin’ early, the first time. Crack an eye open and peek out your ‘coon, and there’s still heinous bright sunshine flashing across the walls, so you get that eye squeezed right shut again and curl up tighter around your best friend. He fits neatly against your belly, all wrapped up in a little ball with his tiny horns braced under your chin. He’d give you sores there, with those horns, if they weren’t so rounded and dull—but you figure the rest of him is sharp enough to make up for it.

And anyhow, you like holding him this way. Like it a motherfuckin’ lot.

The second time you wake up, the sun’s gone and finally tucked herself behind the horizon. You crack your jaw around an enormous yawn and stretch all your limbs way out—’coon’s getting a little bit cramped for doing that, though. Little brother is still asleep against you, his face soft and calm, lines all smoothed out. You bring a hand up and touch his cheek, fit your palm against it, the tiniest pap in the world. He turns his face into you, and you feel the warmth of his skin burning there on your palm. Like holding the sun.

Feels like you might just _pop,_ holdin’ in all this love you have for him.

You squeeze him a little bit tighter, then reluctantly let him go—you’ll have to get your love on of him later. Little brother doesn’t much like to be woken up so early; he wastes too much energy keeping his tiny self runnin’ hot as a furnace, you think. It does tire him out something fierce, and he need always sleep longer than you.

You squirm out of your ‘coon, careful not to bump him too much, then blow the slime out your nose and slide on your slippers so you won’t track sopor across the floor as you shuffle into the ablutions block. You don’t care much about where sopor gets tracked and where it doesn’t, but your best friend gets onto you about keepin’ clean, so you try your best to do so—at least when he’s around, anyway.

You hurry through your morning ablutions, pissin’ and then hopping into the trap to rinse the sopor off of your skin before it dries on all sticky. Yank a brush through your hair (it’s easier, since your brother got it all untangled for you last night) and scrub another brush across your unwieldy fangs, then tug on some clean clothes—baggy spotted pants and a purple long-sleeved shirt with black ‘round the collar and the cuffs and your sign printed all neat and curvy on the front of the shoulder. Paint your face up in smooth lines and grin at yourself in the mirror because you are one _mirthful_ motherfucker.

Once you’ve finished that up, you pad into your kitchen as quiet as you can. The pink moon is liftin’ up off of the horizon, basking your hive in her soft glow. You breathe in slow—the air smells sharp and fresh, after last night’s rain. The ocean waves lap softly at your seashore, and the sand gleams dark and wet in the faint light. You scoop up a pie, tug your shoes on, and head outside.

Sittin’ out beside the ocean has always seemed to you a peaceful thing. You understand why it makes those warmer-blooded than you so nervous—seadwellers are a vicious motherfuckin’ folk, but so are you, and they damn well know it. They leave you fair alone, and you do the same, most times. You only take fish from their waters if you can’t find anything in the forest, which is a rare enough occasion now you’re older. Your lusus didn’t teach you how to hunt land-dwelling beasts, but Karkat sure as hell did. He didn’t want to see you go hungry whenever the fishin’ faltered. Sweet little sugargrub, him.

You settle yourself down by the seashore, just in front of the tide, where inches in front of your toes the water laps greedily at the sand. Pull your knees to your chest and drop your chin down onto ‘em, staring off into those dark waves. You fancy, once or twice, that you see a flash of white—your lusus, rearing his great big head out of the water, horns agleam and bleating his hello to you.

Turns out it’s just the foam cappin’ the waves as they break against themselves.

You eat your pie, slow and easy, as you watch the moon creep higher into the sky. There’s a green tint starting to touch the sky, second moon followin’ her pink sister up over the horizon, when you hear noise behind you. Noisy little steps, crunching against the sifting sand. You recognize that gait, short and brisk with purpose. You flick an ear back towards your little brother and chuff softly, acknowledge him without looking away from the waves.

“Good evening, my most magnificent motherfucker,” you say as he settles down beside you. He’s all cleaned up, too, his black jacket tucked tight around his narrow shoulders. He smells like your soap. “How was your day?”

“I wouldn’t know. I was asleep.” He bares all his little yellow fangs in a yawn, rolling his jaw back to stretch it, and you think he may still be halfway sleepin’. “No shitty dreams; that’s the best one can hope for in a day, I guess. What about you? How long have you been up?”

“Just since the pink moon up and arose her fine self, bro,” you say, leaning back on your hands and glancing over at him. He’s studying the sea, too, but there’s a nervous clench to his jaw and his ears are halfway to pinned. He doesn’t like the sea much, your best friend. You can’t say you blame him. “How long have you been up and kickin’ ass?”

“Mm—only like fifteen minutes.” He leans back on his hands to match you, legs crossed in front of him. You stretch your own legs out across the sand, where it’s still toasty warm from the day’s scorching sunshine. “Did you eat?”

“Ate a pie,” you say, nodding at the empty tin next to you. You hear him hum, real quiet, quiet like Karkat shouldn’t be, and something in your chest twists, hard and motherfuckin’ uncomfy. “But I can make us up some breakfast, brother, if you’re hungerin’. Be more than glad to.”

“Nah, that’s okay.” He shuffles sideways, lays his heavy head in your lap. Your breath hitches in your chest. He’s turnin’ his stomach to the sea, all open and vulnerable and pressed up close against you. Trusts you to protect him from those lapping waves, from what beasts make home in that wet and dark and cold, and by messiahs, protect him you _will._ It’s a little gift, his trust in you, and you wonder if he knows what he’s giving you. Figure for sure enough he does. He’s clever, your palebrother. “I’ll make something for us later, before I leave.”

You hunch down over him, kiss the point of his shoulder and frown at the thought of him leavin’. You know it’s got to be done, you know he’s got a hive to keep up and a real actual lusus what’ll worry if he doesn’t return, but—

But you do hate being alone. Hate it something fierce.

“Oh, don’t make that face.” He scowls up at you, fuzzy eyebrows drawn close together. Reaches one tiny hand up and fits it against your cheek, hot and calloused. You lean into him. “You know I can’t stay here forever. Besides, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. It’s not like you’re never gonna see me again.”

“Shit, I know, bro,” you say. Can’t help the miserable tone in your voice, though. “I know you gotta go. I ain’t gonna keep you here, don’t worry. It’s just all kinds of lonely when you’re gone from the hive.”

Karkat sighs, brushing the rough pad of his thumb across the arch of your cheek. You tilt your head to press a little kiss to his palm, and he crooks his claws back behind your ear and scratches. You chitter quietly down at him, let him know how nice he’s makin’ you feel. “I know it is, you pitiful disaster. But I’ll talk to you every night, okay? I’ll have to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. God knows someone’s gotta do it.”

“I’ll take care, brother, don’t you motherfuckin’ worry,” you assure him—it’s the least you can do. Don’t much like to worry your poor best friend. He gets enough of that on his own. “But I was wondering if maybe, this time, I could up and—”

Must know what you’re gonna ask (and indeed, you do ask it every time he leaves), because he pins his ears all flat and says, his voice firm and sharp, “No. No way. We’ve gone over this a million times. I am _not_ dragging your bony purple ass all the way back to my shitty hive.”

You whine a tad petulantly at him, and he paps a hand firmly over your mouth.

“I said _no,”_ he repeats. “It’s too dangerous at my hive.”

“Well, if it’s that motherfuckin’ dangerous, maybe _you_ shouldn’t be goin’ there, either,” you grumble, your words muffled against his little palm. “You oughta stay here. Bring your lusus. Mine ain’t gonna give half a flyin’ fuck, and if he tried to hurt your lusus I’d—I’d—well, fuck, I sure wouldn’t let him. You could stay here, the both of you, and you’d be real safe—I wouldn’t let anything hurt you, not ever, best friend, not motherfuckin’ _ever.”_

Karkat’s scowl gets even fiercer as you talk. You’ve gone through this argument again and again and again, and your words are all stale and useless, but you gotta say ‘em anyway. You gotta _try,_ you gotta motherfuckin’ _hope._ Karkat pushes himself up, and you regret that, for a second—your lap is cold where he leaves it.

“I’m not having this argument with you again,” he says, his voice terse. He stands, all the tiny dark hairs on his arms and neck bristlin’ up, his headhair just the littlest bit bushier than usual, fluffin’ up with his anger. Makes him look darker all over, but it’s still a pale imitation of an adult’s fearsome black hide. Neverthe-motherfucking-less, you hear what he’s not saying loud and clear. He is well and truly annoyed at you, now, and verging on _pissed the fuck off._ “You’re staying here.”

“Brother, I—”

He stomps off before you can finish, heading back towards your hive, and you scramble onto your feet. It doesn’t take you but a couple of big steps to catch up, and you duck your head down to his level—make sure you don’t turn your horns towards him—and droop your ears a little, whining apologetically. He growls at you, rattly and soft.

“Best friend, little diamond, palest brother,” you try, darting in front of him for a moment. He pulls up short just before he walks into you, then proceeds to slam his nubby little horns into your chest for havin’ the gall to get in the way of his badass motherfuckin’ self. You wince, but the pain ain’t anything to be concerned about—brother can only bruise, with those horns, and that headbutt weren’t hardly enough to do even that. You know he knows that, too, else he’d never turn them against you. “I wasn’t trying to anger a brother, I promise. Just speakin’ truth, that’s all. If your hive is being that dangerous to you, you ought not stay there. You oughta come here, where I can be keeping—”

“It’s not about the hive, Gamzee,” he snaps, voice tearing out of his throat in a familiar, ragged little snarl. You don’t flinch back. Stand and face his anger, as is your duty. “It’s never about the _fucking_ hive! It’s about _me,_ okay? Don’t you _get it?_ Can’t you see what’s right in front of you, or is your thinkpan too sopor-rotted for even that little bit of effort, huh?”

“What’s right in front of me, bro?” you demand, setting your own jaw all stubborn. You hate arguin’ with your brother, but if it’s an argument that needs to be had, you’ll have it, and seems to you he’s itching for a fight. (You’ve discovered it’s easier, most times, if you let him work off some of that fighting energy before you try to shoosh him. You’ve made a good study of your palemate, or so you’d like to think.) “If I’m too fuckin’ stupid to see it, why doesn’t a brother do his moirailin’ duty and motherfuckin’ _enlighten_ me?”

Karkat takes in a big breath, gettin’ ready to spit holy fire, you imagine. When he shouts, though—and a mighty shout it is, loud and scratchy and terrible—he’s only got three words to say. He pushes all up into your space until you’re nose to nose, and then he lets loose, howling at the top of his little lungs, “Motherfucking mutant _cullbait!”_

The both of you pause a couple seconds, after that. You consider for a moment. Hm.

And then Karkat plows on, unwilling to stop now that he’s got his temper flared up. _“I’m_ a motherfucking _mutant,_ okay, Gamzee? You know that. This? This—” He gestures at the whole of himself, voice hissing and dark. “—isn’t supposed to exist. _I’m_ not supposed to exist. And you know what’s going to happen when the imperial drones come? I’m _not_ going to exist, not anymore. They’re going to _cull_ me.”

You flatten your ears back against your skull, roll the hinge of your jaw forward to lock it. Something tight and hot and fierce writhes in your chest, thinkin’ on that. Thinkin’ on your brother, your Karkat—thinkin’ on anyone laying hands to him with intent to hurt. Even through the ever-present calm of sopor across your thinkpan, it _burns._

“And you know what?” Karkat continues, because once he gets goin’ he just doesn't know how to _stop._ “I’ll be lucky if I last that long! If anyone finds out I’m a mutant, they’ll report me. Hell, fuck, the drones could come to murder me tonight, tomorrow, who the fuck knows? Every single _fucking_ night, I’m just waiting to see if I’ll survive. And I will _not_ drag you into that, Gamzee. If someone sees you at my hive, they’ll know you’re one of my quadrants, and they’ll punish you for not reporting me like you fucking should’ve. So no. You are _not ever_ going to my hive. Fuck, I shouldn’t even be coming to _your_ hive. If anyone found out—if anyone knew that you helped a shitspewing mutant fuck like _me,_ if anyone knew you were my _palemate—”_

He chokes off for a minute, a tremor running across his shoulders. The yellows of his eyes edge into orange, his pupils swelling with terror. You can smell the fear coming off of him in waves of curdled milk and salt. The scent makes something ancient and awful stir in your thinkpan. (You really should have another pie. One is clearly not enough for this wreck of a conversation.)

“No. I won’t let them hurt you,” your littlest brother says, his voice softer but no less furious. “Never. And if that means not being around you, then—then fine. What we want doesn’t matter, compared to keeping you _alive._ Do you understand?” When you don’t immediately respond, he snarls at you, shows you all his round little teeth in threat. “Do you _fucking_ understand?”

You draw yourself up to your full height, then. Look down at your best friend—see him hesitate, but he’s no coward. Doesn’t bother to take a step back, doesn’t even bother to drop his head or avert his eyes. He is fearless to your face. Fuck, but you love him so _hard._

“I understand that you can be pretty fuckin’ stupid,  too, best friend,” you say, your voice quiet. He blinks up at you, face smoothing out for a moment in his surprise. You don’t often speak back to him, not so defiantly, but today he’s gone and set you _burning,_ he has. “You really think I’d rather sit back and let you die than face the whole motherfuckin’ world down with you? You think I’d like as to sit in my hive, wonderin’ at whether or not you’ve survived the fuckin’ night? You think I place the value of my life over yours? Oh, _Karkat—”_ You show him all your teeth in a most holy smile, feel them aching in your mouth. You want to bite him, want to tear all those stupid, shitty thoughts from his precious head. “How could you ever think something so motherfucking _stupid?”_

Brother bristles up again, curving his claws and dipping his horns at you. “Stupid? Are you _fucking_ kidding me? I’m trying to keep you safe, I’m trying to keep you _alive,_ I—”

You meet him head-on, this time. Soothed by sopor you may be, but even that is not enough to keep your rage from humming around your horntips when you think on Karkat’s hurting, on Karkat’s _dying._ You turn your head off to the side, tip your chin up, show him the points of your horns and give him a second of warning, as is only fair.

He doesn’t stop shouting.

You slam your head down, ramming your temple against Karkat’s with a heavy _crack._ The sides of your horns clack together, sending vibrations stinging through your head and jaw. Your palemate snarls, but it’s a sound more of anger than of pain—your skulls are thick enough to withstand most anything, so you aren’t afraid you’ve hurt him. (Would never do it if you thought you’d hurt him, never _ever.)_ He shuts up, a little, once he realizes how fucking mad you’re getting. There’s still a low growl bubbling in his throat, though.

Stubborn little motherfucker, your best friend.

You take a deep breath and rattle off a growl of your own. Your chest is bigger, and your growl keeps on rollin’, even as he has to pause to take a breath. He keeps his head braced solidly against yours, not a single little bit of give to him. You push a little harder with your own head, try to turn his—it doesn’t turn an inch, but his feet do stumble in the sand, trying to keep his balance. He’s saying something in that loud, angry voice of his, but you’re tunin’ him out. Ain’t no point in arguing when neither of you are gonna listen, you figure.

Your hornlock—and it would be a hornlock proper, you figure, if only your little brother’s horns were big enough to really lock against yours—lasts a good, long while. You figured it would. Best friend is the stubbornest fucker you ever did meet, but you’ve got no intention of yielding to him. Won’t overpower him with your strength, either. That’s not the point of a ‘lock—it’s a battle of wills, not strength, and usual-like you figure your brother would win.

Not this time, though. You ain’t gonna let him.

He’s getting tired fast, you notice, his anger leaving him just as quick as it came. His temple sears warm against yours. Alive. He’s alive, and you’re damn well gonna keep him that way, whether he likes it or not. You can feel his ears starting to relax from where they’ve been flattened up, all flushed red and furious. One of them flicks wearily against you, and you huff out a breath, almost amused. Brother’s wanting to surrender. You know he is.

Beats you why he won’t just goddamn _do it._

You give the side of his head another push, and this time it turns for you. Karkat’s chin dips, hesitating, and you silently urge him to stay put, to up and motherfucking _yield._ He rattles off another little growl, though, and swings his head back up to brace his temple against yours. Your horns click together and you sigh at him.

Takes another ten minutes for Karkat to relax again, despite you pushin’ at him all you can without sending him toppling into the sand. He pushes right back, though—not about to go down with a fight. You can’t help but feel a little bit proud of him for that, seeing as it’s yet more proof that you have the world’s fiercest motherfucking moirail.

Once those ten minutes are over, though, he’s more leanin’ against you than he is bracin’. You’re about to give him one last push when he lifts a hand towards your face, and for half a fuckin’ second you are _very_ tempted to let him pap all this hot, stinging, unfamiliar emotion right out of you. The urge passes quick, though, when you remember what he up and _said,_ and you growl low and soft at him. “Brother, do not fucking _dare.”_

He drops his hand, growling back at you—but you get the feeling it’s more for show than anything else. You push his head a couple more times, and each time he comes right back to you. He barely bumps the side of your horn with the side of his, though. You’ve almost got him. You let him push weakly against you a minute more, then give him one final shove with your horns. He lets you turn his head, and when you pull back, giving him room to move in again, he doesn’t. He keeps his head turned from you, chin dropped and eyes down.

He surrenders.

You don’t feel altogether victorious, like you thought you might. You just feel kind of glad and kind of sad, all at the same time. Lean in and nuzzle carefully across his temple and through his wiry hair, breathe him in. He smells like warm earth and spice, and the sharp-hot-pungent scent of his anger stings at your nostrils. It’s faded quite a bit, though. There’s nothin’ too strong but the curdled smell of his fear.

“You suck,” he tells you.

“Don’t be a sore motherfuckin’ loser,” you tell him back.

Karkat grumbles but lets you herd him into the hive. Keeps his head down, his chin near about touching his chest. “Meet you in the pile, brother,” you say, once you’re both safely inside. He takes it like the not-quite-a-suggestion it is and slinks towards your respiteblock. You let him go and turn yourself into your kitchen. Hunger never does make for a happy troll.

You prepare two mugs of hot tea and warm up a couple lumps of meat from what’s left of the hoofbeast haunch. Don’t bother cooking it—raw meat’s as good as cooked, in your opinion, so long as it’s not cold. You down a bite or two of sopor while the tea steeps, and once you’re done, you pad into the respiteblock. Pause a moment to bask in the view of your moirail, curled up in your pile, safe and sound and surrendered.

Brother glances up at you through his dark bangs, eyes quiet and tired. His ears prick up a little when he notices the food and drink, and you take a seat beside the pile, offering him a plate of the meat and a mug of the tea. “Finish that up,” you tell him, wrapping your fingers around your own mug and seeping the warmth in. “Then we’ll jam.”

Karkat opens his mouth to protest, but you give him as stubborn a look as you can, and he puts his mouth to better work eatin’. You finish off your tea and meat quickly, setting your dishes aside and watching your best friend out the corner of your eye. You try to think on what you should say to such a frightened little troll, but your pan is sopor-slow and heavy. You hate that part of sopor most of all. Makes you feel stupid—makes you feel like you ain’t takin’ care of Karkat as well as you could.

You think it’d be quite a bit worse if you tried to take care of him without sopor, though.

Still, you’ll do your best, and maybe one day you won’t need the sopor to calm your fucked-up pan. You know Karkat would like that, at least. Know he’d like to be the one as does all the calming. You think you’d like that, too.

Once he’s finished his eating and drinking, your littlest brother sets his dishes aside and folds his hands in his lap. His little shoulders are hunched, and he won’t meet your eyes.

“Best friend,” you say, your own voice quiet as can be. “We gotta talk about this.”

“We’ve already talked about it. A lot.”

“Yeah, we have,” you admit, nodding your head down a little. “But I never knew you felt so threatened, brother. Never knew you felt like you were avoidin’ death each and every day.” Your mouth twists into a most unmirthful smile. “Never knew you held my life so highly above yours. It ain’t right.”

“I’m your palemate,” he says, his voice growing firmer. “I’m responsible for you. I’m supposed to keep you safe, no matter what.”

You climb onto the pile with him. Curl yourself around him and tug him down so he’s laying, his legs tangled with yours, watchin’ you with those weary eyes. You reach out and slide your palm against his cheek, smooth it out along his tightened jaw. He relaxes slowly into your hand, eyes fluttering shut for a moment before he remembers he ain’t allowed to chill for even half a goddamn second and tenses right up again. “Yeah,” you murmur. “Yeah, you’re my palemate, bro. The best goddamned palemate in the whole entire world. But it’s not a one-way street, you dig? If you get your protect on for me, I gotta get it on for you. I can’t just let you go around fearin’, all the time.”

“It’s not all the time,” Karkat mutters. You trace your fingers along his temple, across his eyebrows and the short, round snub of his nose. “Just when I think about it.”

“Must think about it an awful lot, motherfucker, it bein’ so fearsome to you.”

He doesn’t respond to that. Just nuzzles up into your hand and trembles lightly.

“Okay,” you say, voice soft and slow. “Okay, little brother. Let’s just rest a while, first. Get all that sick fear out of you.” You curl up tight around him, fold him up in your arms and press soft kisses into his hair. He’s tense against you, every little bit of him pulled tight and scared. You let your hands roam across his back, rub soothing circles over his shoulders and knead lightly between the knobs of his spine. “It’s alright, best friend. It’s gonna be alright, I promise. Shh-shh-shh, shoooosh.”

He buries his face in the crook of your neck, and his breath is quick and warm. “Gamzee, you don’t have to—”

“I’m going to,” you tell him, voice nice and firm. He shudders against you but doesn’t offer another protest. He always has responded better to a firm touch, you know. It’s too easy for him to argue, otherwise. Too easy for him to feel like he doesn’t deserve this. You sling a leg protectively over his, scratching your claws along his back in what way you know makes him shiver. He huddles down against you, and you think you could die for love of him. You’re not gonna let anything hurt him, not _ever,_ not as long as you have claws and fangs and pan with which to defend.

You croon softly to him as you pet him, stroke the fear from his back and shoulders. Get a hand tangled in his hair and trail your claws softly across his scalp, though you avoid his horns—leastways for now. He’s not ready to go under yet, still too tense against you. You settle yourself against him, take a few deep, slow breathes. Try to settle your own pan, try to find that soft, calm place what lets you soothe your moirail to the best of your ability.

You find it, eventually, once Karkat starts nuzzling against your collarbone, and you take a deep breath in. Press your lips to the top of brother’s precious little head and then breathe out—a slow, sleepy sigh from deep in your chest, with the faintest little rattle of a purr beneath it. There’s only the vaguest _shoosh_ sound to it, but it’s a shoosh, alright, good and proper—not one of those formal little shooshes, but one of the deeper shooshes, one of the ones what digs right into your thinkpan and pulls you down into _peace_ and _calm_ and _rest._

It works now for your best friend, to your relief. He slumps against you as you shoosh him, whining miserably into your throat. You smooth your hands down his sides, rub them gently over his little grubscars, and that gets a mighty motherfuckin’ pretty chirr from him. “That’s it, that’s right,” you murmur to him, pressing a kiss to the tip of one of his ears. “Good job, best friend, you’re doin’ so good. I’m gonna take care of you, so don’t you get to worryin’. I’ll take care of everything.”

Karkat tries to somehow wedge himself even closer to you. You feel his little teeth skim your shoulder as he bites there, soft and sweet, trying to hold you near to him. You’ve got no intent to move away before he wants, not ever, and you tell him as much. Smooth your hands through his hair and lean his head back once you coax his jaw to unclench again, pepper his face with light, sugar-sweet kisses. He leans up towards you, and you let him shift that littlest bit. He kisses your mouth, pale as stardust, and you think your heart might just explode.

Doesn’t explode, and thank messiahs for that, but it does shatter a little bit when Karkat gets an eye cracked open and it’s feverish-bright with a film of glossy pink tears. You cup a hand around the back of his head, guide him to nestle into the crook of your neck, and he fists up a hand in your shirt and breathes hard. “Shh, best friend, best beloved, shhh. It’s okay, you’re okay. You can cry if you feel a need, ‘s alright.”

For all your brother has a noisy set of lungs on him, for all he can bawl and squall and shout like a storm whenever he gets a feel for it, he’s the quietest crier you’ve ever met. Just buries his face against you, his shoulders shaking and his face twisted up in pain. Breaks your heart, he does. You sit up in your pile, tuck him close in your lap, rock him slowly as he cries. He’s talking now, little nonsense words about how fuckin’ sorry he is, how terrible he is for bein’ hatched the way he was, how much worse your life must be because of him.

You want to tear those thoughts out, want to trample them and shred them and bury them far, far away from your love. Ain’t that easy, though. You know it ain’t. Messiahs, do you know. So you press him close to you instead, croon softly and pap his back in a soothing, steady rhythm. Don’t bother answerin’ him, yet—he ain’t listening. He’s too busy wallowing in his self-loathing. You could snap him out of it, but it wouldn’t do any good as of yet. Little brother needs to feel heard, needs to feel like he’s good and well made protest and reason, so you let him talk. Won’t let him do it too long, though, or it’ll twist him up even further inside. It’s a tricky thing, moirallegiance, and sometimes you wonder if you’ve even got a little bit of a grasp on it yet.

When you’ve had enough of him rantin’ at himself (you can only handle a few minutes of it, despite your want to let him feel heard), you slip a hand up and curl your fingers around one little horn. A full-body shudder goes through your best friend, his jaw going slack. His face is tear-streaked and just about the most pitiable thing a troll could ever lay oculars on, but he looks on you like you’re something holy and important and it fills you with such _care_ you can’t even _fathom_ at the depths of it.

“That’s enough, now, best friend,” you murmur, leaning your forehead against his and tightening your grip on his horn. “Hush. It’s time for you to listen.”

He whimpers up at you, the world’s most pitiful little sound, and you begin to speak.


	3. each and every burden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: discussions of death, culling
> 
> chapter track: "heavy in your arms" by florence + the machine

Gamzee talks. Gamzee talks, his voice soft and steady and insistent, and you have no choice but to listen. He’s got you wrapped up snugly against him, his fingers curled around one of your horns, sending little shockwaves of sensation down your spine. You press into him—needy, _worthless,_ too scared to hear him without the shield of his comfort—and he hugs you tighter, kneading his fingers down into your hornbed. You make the world’s _stupidest_ sound as you melt against him: a quivering, high-pitched noise somewhere between a whimper and a chirr. Gamzee croons at you, and you prick your ears forward, strain to hear his voice, to obey him, to _listen._ You want so _badly_ to make him happy, but you just keep _fucking it up._

“I know you’re a mutant, Karkat,” he says, and you shudder, hearing your name in his voice. The sound of it snaps your attention to him as quickly as his fingers do, rubbing back up your horn to press against the blunt tip. For a second, your vision blurs, your heart slowing beneath your sternum, and you can’t even consider being mad or scared or any-fucking-thing. “And I know if the Empire found out, they’d have you culled. Might be that they’d have anybody else who knew about that miraculous blood culled, too, which puts us both in danger. You’re right about that much, little motherfucker.”

You tip your head up, breathe in his scent. He smells like safety, smells like _home,_ and you have never been so homesick in your goddamn _life._ You open your mouth to speak, to promise him you’ll keep him safe, however you need to, to keep the consequences of your hideous blood away from him—but he shakes his head before you can, squeezing your horn firmly. Your legs twitch, a whimper twisting out of your throat before you can stop it.

“No,” Gamzee says, cupping your face with his free hand. His palm is wide and cool against your cheek, sweeping away your turmoil with each little pap. “You’ll get your turn to talk again, diamond mine, but it isn’t now. Now’s your turn to listen.”

Obey, obey, you have to _obey,_ have to _listen._ You shudder in a breath, tip your head back and show your moirail your throat. His eyes soften in the low light and he chitters quietly at you, leans forward to nuzzle your neck. He looks pleased. Thank god. Thank _god._

“That’s it, good job,” he murmurs, and some tight, distressed thing in your chest loosens the slightest bit. Your breath hitches, and then you’re crying again—slower this time, hot tears rolling down your cheeks every few seconds. “It’s okay, Karkat, shh, you’re okay. You’re doin’ so well, you make me want to take care of you so _much._ Messiahs, I love you more than you can even motherfucking _imagine.”_

You bring a hand up, tangle it into his thick curls, press the pads of your fingers into the soft undercoat of his hair.

“And that’s exactly why I can’t keep lettin’ you carry this on your own, best friend. If somebody’s got a quarrel with you, whether it’s another troll or a whole goddamn _Empire_ of trolls _,_ they’ve got a motherfuckin’ quarrel with me, too. You and me, we’re a team, we’re partners, we’re _palemates._ Ain’t that what you’ve always said? Your burdens are mine, no matter how heavy they are, and I’ll carry them gladly, my beloved.”

You bury your face against the crook of his neck, press your lips to thin skin of his neck. Feel his pulse pounding there, slow and cool and safe. You feel torn apart and vulnerable and _seen,_ but you have never felt safer than when Gamzee takes you to pieces like this.

“And it’s nothin’ you’ve done, little brother. You didn’t force these burdens on me just by meeting me, or by agreeing to be my palemate. I _want_ these burdens. I want _you,_ best friend, I want all of you, every little piece.” He curls up tighter around you, a wall of bone and muscle between you and the rest of the whole awful world. “It would have been a far greater burden to have never met you, love. I am grateful for each and every burden we share. Never think elsewise.”

You curl your fingers into his shirt and squeeze your eyes shut. There’s too much between the two of you, clothes and air and skin and addiction and fear and you wish you could hollow him out and curl up inside, where it’s safe and kind and sweet—morbid thoughts, but you want him, you want every single piece of him right back. You want to love him for sweeps and sweeps and sweeps—but you can’t do that if he dies. You can’t do that if he dies because of _you—_

You choke on a terrified growl, pressing your forehead to Gamzee’s shoulder, butting your horns up against his jaw.

“Shoosh,” Gamzee says, leaning his head against yours. “Shoooosh, little brother, shh-shh-shoooosh. Hear me. I don’t want to die, and I sure as fuck don’t want you to. If you think that’s a likely thing to happen, then we gotta fix somethin’. We can’t just sit around and wait, if you’re feelin’ threatened. We need to get you safe, Karkat. We need to get _us_ safe, but you can’t just be hidin’ yourself away from me to accomplish that. I know you think that’s savin’ me, brother, I know you got martyrdom written in your blood, but lettin’ you die that way would kill me as certainly as anything else. You understand? Your death is my death, Karkat, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent that. I won’t let you.”

It hurts. Fuck, it hurts to hear that. You press your face harder against him, agony writhing in your chest and stomach. He’ll die because of you. He’ll die, he’ll die, fuck, he’ll _die—_ you claw desperately at his shoulders, and he seems to sense you teetering on the edge of over-fucking-whelmed, because he quiets himself for a moment. He presses up against you, strokes his palms along your sides and shoulders and breathes out that deep, soothing shoosh again. It’s like a blast of cold water across your face, that shoosh—it yanks you away from your hurting and forces you to focus on him, on here, on now.

You’re safe. You’re safe, he’s got you. Shh. Shh-shh-shooooosh.

“I know,” he murmurs softly, his mouth pressed against your hair, right next to your horn. You feel the vibrations through your skull. “I know it’s scary, best friend. We’re bound together, you and I. We bear fear enough for the both of us. But we don’t _have_ to fear, you understand? We can figure something out, figure out some way to keep the both of us safe and happy. I know we can. I wanna work with you on that, brother, but we can’t make those plans if you keep stormin’ off on me, flauntin’ your self-sacrificial bullshit the way you do. You feel me, motherfucker?”

He looks at you, the yellows of his eyes pale as can be, his pupils small and intent. He’s waiting for you to respond—it’s your turn to talk, you suppose, and his turn to listen. But when you open your mouth, the only thing that comes out is the tiniest, most wretched little sob. Gamzee croons sweetly at you, tucks you closer, and rocks you both slowly back and forth.

For a few minutes, the two of you are quiet. You cry your ugly red tears out, until your face feels dry and scratchy and your eyes are puffy. He holds you close, props his chin between your horns and hums a low, slow melody you don’t recognize—in spite of that, it’s unbearably familiar. You shift down to press your ear to his chest, listen to the steady drum of his purple heart.

When you finally speak, your voice is an unfamiliar rasp. “I want to keep you safe. It’s not fair—it’s not fair that I’m putting you in danger just by being around you. It’s selfish.” You pause and wait for him to argue, but he doesn’t. He just lets you talk, so you plow onwards, determined to make him understand. “If I was normal, then everything would be okay. We could be moirails, we could join the fleet, we could be successful. But because I’m a mutant, I can’t do any of that shit, and if you want to stay with me, you’re not going to be able to do any of it, either. And you’re—you’re a highblood. Your whole religion is tied up in this place, in this fucking hemospectrum. You could grow up to be a subjugglator, Gamzee. You could go to the Church’s fleet. I know you’ve always wanted to—and now I’m ruining that dream because of some stupid genetic defect. It’s not fucking fair.”

Gamzee huddles closer to you, presses a kiss to your temple. You lean into him and release a slow, shuddery breath. You’re so tired, god, fuck. So tired of being angry, so tired of being scared.

“I want you to have a good life, and I can’t—I can’t give it to you. Not here, not the way you deserve. It would—” You bite the inside of your cheek, swallow your blood. “It would be better for you if we weren’t moirails, you know.”

Gamzee does interrupt you, then. “That’s not motherfuckin’ true,” he says, his voice hard. He brings his hand up, presses the pad of his thumb against the muscle of your jaw until you have to relax it again. Your cheek stings as your teeth unlatch. “Not true, and never will be. You’re _mine,_ motherfucker. There ain’t anyone for my diamond but you. You keep me calm, keep me centered, give me somethin’ to care about.” He nudges your chin up until you meet his eyes. “Without you, there’s nothing but empty seas and fighting over fish and sopor to make it all feel softer. You bring warmth, brother, you bring _life._ I don’t want anyone but you. We’re serendipity, you and I.”

You choke on another strangled sob, ducking your head so you can hide your face against his chest. Serendipity. Oh, fuck, your dumbass romantic self want to believe that’s true, but—“You must have the world’s shittiest luck,” you say, laughing bitterly. “You’ve got the world’s most worthless lusus, _and_ serendipity has seen fit to saddle you with the most hideous bulgesucking palemate on all of Alternia. What the hell did you do to piss off the Mothergrub, huh?”

“Mm, I don’t figure I pissed anybody off.” His hand comes up to cup the back of your head, cradling you protectively against him. “I figure I got lucky, for truth. Figure the mirthful messiahs seen fit to give me multitude blessings, what with my bitchtits hive and my most wonderful friends and the world’s fiercest, bravest motherfucking troll as my moirail. I wouldn’t trade you for anything, Karkat. Not for bein’ a subjugglator, not for serving the Empire, not even for the Grand Highblood his motherfuckin’ self.  You’re worth more than all of it. You aren’t _makin’_ me do anything, I promise. I _want_ to. This is my choice, little invertebrother. You don’t get to make it for me.”

You bring a hand up and rub furiously at your eyes, but Gamzee sets his fingers over yours. “Gentle, brother,” he reminds you, wiping beneath your eyes with delicate, cold fingers. You lean into his touch, eyes sliding shut as he wipes your tear tracks away. You hate this conversation. You hate everything about it. But you know it with certainty, now: he pities you. He pities you _so much._ He’d die for you, and he wants you to let him.

“I can’t let you. I won’t let you,” you whisper, tipping your head down to kiss his knuckles. “I won’t let you die for me, Gamzee. You can’t ask that of me.”

Gamzee frowns at you, opens his mouth to speak, but you pap a hand over his lips.

“I won’t ever let you die, not for anything, not as long as I can help it,” you continue, your voice growing stronger as you make up your mind—for better or for worse, you’re not sure, yet. (Knowing your unlucky streak with the universe, however, it’s for worse.) “Which is why we’re going to have to find a way for _both_ of us to survive, if you’re going to be this stubborn about sticking with me. We need a plan.”

Gamzee’s eyes brighten, and he licks your hand in joyful agreement. Blegh. You wipe your palm against your shirt, and as soon as his mouth is uncovered, Gamzee declares, “Bitchtits, brother! Now that we’re all up in agreement, I’m sure we can come up with a motherfuckin’ awesome plan in no time. But first—” He squirms away from you, and you can’t stop the unhappy little whine that rises in your throat. He reaches back, smoothing a hand between your horns. “Shoosh, palebrother, shh. A motherfucker’ll be right back. I gotta finish takin’ care of you, don’t I? Before we get our epic motherfuckin’ plan on.”

“You have to do no such thing,” you tell him, but he ignores you, the ornery fucker, and darts out of the block. You reluctantly huddle down in the pile, rearranging it into a nest of pillows and blankets and old shirts—with the very uncomfortable clown horns on the _outside_ edge, thank you very much. You bury your face against one of Gamzee’s oldest jackets, inhale his scent and try to calm yourself with it. It makes you painfully twitchy, being alone on a pile, weak and still half out of your pan with _pale._ He hadn’t quite put you under, but he’d gotten damn close, and the ache of your vulnerability is terrifying without him here to soothe it.

Luckily, Gamzee’s back within a few minutes, several things balanced precariously in his arms. He takes a seat next to you on the pile, and you burrow closer to him—glare at him, too, just _daring_ him to comment on how blatantly needy you’re being. You know you’re disgusting, thanks, you don’t need any reminders—

“Yeah, I’m right here, best friend,” Gamzee murmurs, petting a hand across your back, and okay, maybe you can tolerate _some_ of his comments. You rest your head in his lap, turning your ear towards his stomach, where you can hear the soft, constant gurgle of his insides. He reaches off to the side and brings a soft, damp washcloth into view, wiping it across your face and eyes. “Theeeere we go—we’ll get you all cleaned up and settled proper, won’t we, littlest motherfucker?”

You open your mouth to snark at him—you are _perfectly_ capable of cleaning yourself (though you will grudgingly admit it’s nicer when he does it)—but all that comes out is a weary little chirp of agreement. You are the worst, most pathetic troll in the universe, you’ve officially decided.

Gamzee just looks at you with all the sappy adoration in the world, though, chittering his approval right back to you.

Once he’s cleaned the vile combination of snot and horrendously bright tears from your face, he offers you a tissue. You flush, your face heating, but obediently blow your nose and toss the tissue into the wastebasket—or, at least, in the general direction of the wastebasket. Everything off of the pile isn’t your concern at the moment. Gamzee offers you a glass of cold water, which you eagerly gulp down because water is the best thing you’ve ever tasted right now, holy _shit—_

“Can I take this off, beloved?” Gamzee asks once you’ve finished drinking, tugging at the hem of your shirt and jacket.

“Mm—only if you take yours off,” you agree, setting the glass off to the side and quickly shedding your jacket. It scatters little pieces of sand across the floor and into your _pile,_ and you growl weakly. Sand. You hate sand. It gets _every-fucking-where._

 Gamzee paps your chest gently, crooning, and you settle as he helps you pull your shirt off. “Ain’t no thing, brother,” he assures you, tugging his own shirt off next. “We’ll get the block cleaned up soon, don’t you worry.”

You grunt in agreement, latching onto him as soon as he’s tossed his shirt into the pile. You press your cheek to his chest, savoring the cool texture of his skin and the low thrum of his heartbeat. It’s slower than yours already, even though he hasn’t pupated yet—and it’ll only get slower, you know. A big, slow highblood heartbeat, all yours to listen to and love and cherish.

Well. You suppose _maybe_ you can share with Tavros, if he keeps flush-flirting with your moirail. _Maybe._ He wouldn’t be the worst choice. (And besides—Gamzee will need someone else to care for him, after you’re gone. Despite his insistence to the contrary, you don’t truly believe you’ll survive this. How can you?)

Gamzee smooths his palms over your spine, and you arch hungrily into his touch. It’s the only thing keeping you grounded, at the moment—without him, without his scent and touch and sound, you’d be lost and adrift and so terribly, terribly frightened to feel this soft. He’s here, though. Your moirail is here, and he’s piling you, and you’ve never been so safe.

“Yeah, I’ve got you, Karkat,” he murmurs, trailing his claws lightly over your spine. You shiver, goosebumps spreading across your skin. His hands slide further up, tracing softly around your grubscars, and you bury your flushed face against his stomach. He’s soft, there. Soft and vulnerable and yours. “We’re okay, the both of us. We’re gonna be okay, best friend. You don’t have to worry your precious head, now. Relax a little motherfuckin’ while—let me take care of a brother.”

He pushes you, gently, and you let him—guides you to lay back against the pile and drapes himself over you like a cool, heavy blanket. You chirr up at him because holy _fuck_ you like that way too much, like having him over you, solid and strong and _safe._ He dips his head and presses a soft kiss to your throat, and you immediately tip your head back for him. You feel the brush of his fangs over your skin, and it sends an exhilarating thrill through you. He wouldn’t hurt you. He wouldn’t ever hurt you.

(...right?)

He slides his hands up, into your hair, massaging soft circles against your temples. You lean into his fingers with another needy little chirr, because _damn_ did he thump you hard with head during your hornlock. Not hard enough to bruise, maybe, but hard enough to leave you tender. Motherfucker.

You understand why he did it, though. You suppose you had to butt heads over this whole shitty situation at some point. You’re suppose you’re glad it went as well as it did—and you’re selfishly glad that he hasn’t broken up with you to preserve his own life. You still have to scowl at the thought of him putting himself in danger for you, but Gamzee doesn’t let that last long. He sweeps a thumb over the crease between your eyebrows and breathes out a soft, sleepy shoosh. The next second, he’s got both hands on your horns, squeezing tightly—

_Wow,_ holy shit, you can really appreciate the fuck out of that, now that you’re not flipping your shit. His grip sends a bolt of sensation from your head to the small of your back, curls around your temples and your jaw and turns you into a sack of fucking sentient jelly. You have to groan a little and _fuck,_ you’re the absolute worst and you don’t understand why he doesn’t just _leave—_

“Yeah, that’s right, best beloved,” he says, his voice low and rough. He’s watching you with wide, focused eyes, both his ears pricked towards you, like you’re something worth paying attention to. “Feels good, doesn’t it? And you deserve it, so much. You deserve to feel motherfuckin’ good, deserve to get your relax on. That’s it, just rest for me, Karkat. Nobody’s gonna hurt you while I’m around.”

Your stomach swarms with butterflies, but there’s not a single ounce of tension in your muscles—you can only chirr readily at him, let him know how good he’s making you feel, your eyes half-lidded. You’re so tired, so worn out, and this does feel so _good._ Besides, you know him well enough to know that he’s too stubborn to quit before he gets what he wants—if he wants you under, he’ll have you under, so what’s the point in fighting him? (Besides salvaging your pride, that is, but it’s already in tatters at this point.)

He works you over for a good, long time. Keeps his hands on your horns, rubbing steadily and kneading down deep into your hornbed until you’re loose-limbed and weak and warm. He scatters the softest, sweetest kisses across your face and lips and neck, covering you in his scent and his love. A purr swells in your chest, high-pitched and rattling, and Gamzee responds in kind; his purr is lower and slower, like the thrum of his breathing, and just about the most soothing thing you’ve ever fucking heard.

You must sleep, after a little while, because the next thing you remember you’re opening your eyes and the light in the block has changed. It’s brighter, now, both pink and green in equal measure. It must be close to midnight. Fuck, you can’t believe you’ve wasted an entire evening.

But.

But Gamzee is curled up next to you, eyes shut and mouth open and yep, drooling into your pile, and you feel completely and entirely at peace. You suppose you can’t ever consider piling your moirail a waste. Careful not to wake him, you smooth a hand through his hair, scratching through the soft tufts at the bases of his horns. He shudders in his sleep, pressing closer to you.

You don’t wake him yet. You can stand to wait a little while—he needs the rest, and you can admit in the privacy of your own thoughts that you’re also far too comfortable to move. You just curl up around him, breathing in his familiar scent, and you wait.

It’s late afternoon by the time Gamzee stirs, stretching himself out and wrapping his arms around you. He mumbles something incomprehensible into your stomach, and you scratch softly across his back. “Speak up, bulgemunch,” you say. Your voice is quieter than usual. Warmer. You don’t have the energy to be humiliated by that, right now. “My stomach doesn’t have ears, believe it or not.”

Gamzee pulls back some, gazing up at you. His face is flushed purple with your warmth, his eyes shining. “Pity you so _much,_ Karkat,” he says fervently, then promptly returns to shoving his face into your stomach. He’s definitely getting greasepaint all over you. Ah, well. You can’t even complain when you’re this pale-drunk on his pity.

You wrap your arms around his horns and hug him close, a soft little purr thrumming through the air. “Pity you too, you fucking wreck,” you murmur.

The reason Gamzee eventually decides to move from your pile is your stomach. It’s starting to rumble noisily at you, and he gives it an apologetic little peck before saying, “Shit, I’m sorry, little motherfucker. You must be gettin’ your hunger on. Let’s go get you somethin’ to eat, huh?”

He stands up, and you squirm around, trying to get to your feet—but your stupidly strong moirail scoops you up before you can, cradling you against his chest. You squeak, like the absolute blithering imbecile you are, and butt a horn vindictively against his chest. He just hitches you closer, though, his voice mild as he says, “There, now, best friend, there’s no need to get to fussin’. What’re you hankerin’ to eat, hm? I can make you most anything you want.”

You should leave, really. You should pull yourself together and go back to your hive—god knows your lusus is going to throw a fit at you for being gone so long—but, well, the moons _are_ already leaning towards the western horizon, where they’ll bed down for the day. Maybe you can just—just spend one more day here, yeah—

“How does grubloaf sound?” you suggest.

“Fuck yeah, best friend!”


	4. the old goat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mentions of childhood neglect, lil' bit of violent imagery/thoughts
> 
> chapter track: "dream sweet in sea major" by miracle musical

You get to making the most bitchin’ of grubloafs out of that hoofbeast what stocks your deep thermal hull now, and your little brother slouches at the table behind you and whips his husktop out. You hear him pounding away at the keys, no doubt layin’ sick fire into one of your hatefriends over Trollian as you blend up meat with breadcrumbs and grubsauce and all kinds of wicked spices. Slide that shit into the oven before slipping back over to the table and draping yourself against Karkat’s sturdy little shoulders, nuzzling into his hair. You like how he smells. Warm and bright, clouded with pale pheromones—which is _your_ doing, you think, just a little bit smugly.

“What do you want, dumbass?” Karkat asks, his voice a little absent, reaching up to pap your cheek with one hand as he keeps peckin’ at his keyboard with the other. He looks like he’s trolling John, if the bright blue text on his screen is any indication.

“Wanted to smell you,” you say, all honest, and thoroughly enjoy the miraculous red flush that spreads across his neck and face. “You smell like a motherfuckin’ miracle, best friend, all soft and sweet and—”

Brother makes a halfhearted, hissy little sound and reaches up to swat gentle at your ear. “Oh, fuck off, you giant romantic doucheball. It’s all your fault, anyway—”

“Mm, I know.” You kinda sorta drip your way around and into his lap, get yourself curled up real tight there—it’s not easy, him bein’ so small and you bein’ so big, but you make a motherfucker work. “That makes it even _better.”_

Choked squawk from above you, along with some flashy words of protest what you mostly tune out, because your best friend does get flustered so easily. It’s the cutest motherfuckin’ thing. You press a little kiss to his stomach before pulling out your phone and opening up your own Trollian. Tavros has been messaging you, you notice with a little thrill, wiggling happily in Karkat’s lap.

adiosToreador [AT] began trolling  terminallyCapricious [TC]

AT: hI, gAMZEE! i HOPE YOU’RE, uH, HAVING A REALLY GOOD NIGHT

AT: i MEAN I’M SURE YOU ARE, sEEING AS THIS IS YOUR WEEKEND WITH kARKAT

AT: sO I GUESS THAT GOES WITHOUT, uH, SAYING

AT: tHAT YOU’RE HAVING A GOOD DAY, I MEAN

AT: oKAY, I’M GOING TO STOP NOW

AT: bEFORE THIS GETS EVEN MORE, uH, aWKWARD, bUT

AT: i LOOK FORWARD TO TALKING TO YOU LATER, IF YOU WANT }:)

adiosToreador [AT] ceased trolling  terminallyCapricious [TC]

terminallyCapricious [TC] began trolling  adiosToreador [AT]

TC: hEy tHeRe, MoThErFuCkEr! hOnK! WhAt iS uUuUp?

TC: YoU aRe So ToTaLlY rIgHt AbOuT tHiS bEiN a MoThErFuCkIn GrEaT nIgHt! It’S eVeN bEtTeR nOw tHaT a BrOtHeR gOt To GeT hIs TaLk On wItH yOu.

TC: i HoPe yOu’Re HaViNg ThE mOsT bItcHtItS oF dAyS, tOo!

TC: I kNoW yOu’Re PrObAbLy In ClAsS, dOiN aLl ThAt CoOl lEaRnInG aNd ShIt

TC: bUt LeT a MoThErFuCkEr KnOw WhEn YoU wAnNa TaLk! I’Ve GoT a CoUpLe Of SiCk NeW bEaTs To LaY dOwN aT yOu :O)

terminallyCapricious [TC] ceased trolling  adiosToreador [AT]

“Hey, asswipe.” Karkat reaches down and pokes your cheek, and you turn your head and nibble at his little finger. “We need to plan. I can’t just stay here forever.”

You frown a little bit at that—don’t see why he can’t. You wouldn’t let anybody hurt him, not ever. Just let them _try._ You’ll tear them apart if they so much as _look_ at your palemate, strangle them with their own motherfucking guts, pull their eyes out and—

You stand up abruptly and reach for one of your pies, scooping a few handfuls into your mouth before slotting it into the oven next to the grubloaf. ‘s better hot. “Mm—so what are you thinkin’, brother?” you ask, sucking sopor off of one of your fangs. It’s too sticky when it’s cold, bitter as it tingles against your lips and tongue.

“I don’t know,” Karkat admits, staring down at his lap, and you can see the strength it takes for him to say that—to concede that maybe, sometimes, he doesn’t have everything all together. You lean down and press a kiss to his forehead, pride fluttering in your chest. Think you might see the tiniest smile flicker across his face, before he scowls it away. “I could—I could try to get stronger. I could try to get strong enough to impress the Empress, or at least the drones, but—well, let’s be real.” His mouth twists bitterly. “I’m not that good at anything.”

“Hey, you’re pretty handy with that motherfuckin’ sickle,” you protest, snagging a pair of Faygos from the thermal hull before taking a seat across from Karkat. You slide him the grape-flavored one, and he rolls it absently between his palms. “And maybe the Empress would take a likin’ to you. You might not be able to contribute to the slurry, but I don’t see why she should cull what’s a perfectly healthy-ass troll, otherwise.”

“Maybe,” Karkat says, though he doesn’t look convinced. “But that’s a very, very long fucking shot, and we wouldn’t even know if it would work until the drones came. It’s not exactly a plan that inspires a shitload of confidence, you know?”

“Alright, alright—so try this one on.” You take a swig of your own cherry Faygo, enjoy the sugary sizzle as it stings its way down your throat. Washes the bitter taste of sopor straight from your mouth, it does. Woah, wait, maybe you should try combining those two sick ingredients: a Faygo _and_ sopor pie. Shit, man, the _possibilities—_

“—to Gamzee, Alternia to Gamzee, come the fuck in.” Karkat snaps his fingers in front of your face and you blink at him, jerking back into yourself.

“Oh. Shit, sorry.” You laugh, grinnin’ at him. “Musta zoned out there for a second. Where was I all up and at?”

“I was supposed to be trying something on,” Karkat says, his voice dry. “Right now I feel as though I’m trying on a very, _very_ thin layer of patience. It’s all the rage these days, despite the fact that it chafes in some seriously uncomfortable spots and is going to tear quite shortly and in some quite unseemly places.”

“Oh, right! Don’t get to tearin’, now. How’s about this?” You spread your hands across the air, paint the scene for him real nice. “I’ll get my talk on with the Grand Highblood his motherfucking self. If one of the faithful makes an argument for you, might be that he’ll listen—and he’s got the ear of the Empress, you know. That might turn the odds in your favor.”

Karkat snorts. “The Grand Highblood? _That’s_ your plan? You’ve got to be kidding.” He looks at you a second, and when it’s clear you’re not kidding, he groans and buries his face in his hands. “How are you even going to _get_ to the Grand Highblood? You might be a purpleblood, and one of his freaky juggalo cult members, but there’s no way an adult is going to listen to someone your age. Hell, he doesn’t even know you exist, Gamzee, and he’s with the fleet, so unless you have a way to send intergalactic letters or some shit—”

“Could troll him,” you suggest, beaming. “Like how you troll the humans all the time. That shit’s pretty intergalactic.”

Karkat makes a little sound, half like he’s laughing and half like he’s maybe dying. “Oh my god. That’s it. That’s your plan. You’re going to _troll_ the most violent, sadistic purpleblood in the universe and beg him to let your ugly little mutant moirail live—”

“Hey,” you protest, balking at him with your ears pressed flat. “You’re not ugly, Karkat. Don’t you up and be sayin’ that.”

“And _that’s_ the part you think is wrong—” Karkat groans into his palms. “You’ve got to be kidding. Oh, wait, no, you aren’t. We already addressed that fact.” He groans again. Louder. “Right. No. We’re not doing that. Forget it. Just—just erase the whoooole thing from your thinkpan and start again.”

You scrunch your nose up and try to do as he said, erasin’ that whoooole thing. It doesn’t take long. Your thoughts are like water, drippin’ in and drippin’ out whenever they will. “Er, okay, done—you got any other ideas, motherfucker?”

Karkat frowns, propping his face in his hand and sipping absently on his Faygo. You try to hide a little victorious smile, at that. Ha. Brother usually won’t drink your Faygo, despite the fact you know he likes it when he does. “Mm—well, I guess we could run away, before the drones come. We could live somewhere off-radar. It wouldn’t be much safer, though. We’d have to find food every night, and shelter, and we’d have to avoid other trolls and predators and—ugh, we might be better off just taking our chances with the drones.”

“I could keep us safe,” you assure him, puffin’ yourself up. You’ve got teeth and claws and you’re highblood strong when you’ve got a mind to be. “I know I could, best friend.”

“Mm.” He reaches out, papping your face, and you nuzzle against his palm. “I know you could too, jackass. That’s a last resort, though. I want us to be safe without having to fight all the time. I don’t want us to keep living our lives like this, always looking over our shoulders—you deserve better than that. You could _have_ better than that, if you—”

“Not leaving you,” you say, shaking your head and setting your jaw stubbornly. “Not ever, best friend, not for anything.”

“Right.” Karkat breathes out a little sigh, but you can see in his eyes he’s pleased—can see he hates himself for bein’ pleased, too. You frown, reach out and pap him until his face smooths out again. “What else, then? What else could we do?”

You squirm in your seat, thinkin’ hard as you can. “Well, we could, uh—shit, I guess we could kill the Empress and overthrow the whole hemospectrum.”

Karkat slams his face down against the table and shrieks in frustration, a little bit. You chuckle and reach out, sifting your fingers through his hair until he gets all his shriekin’ done and looks back up at you with those crabby little eyes. You smile sheepishly at him. “That’s a no, then, best friend?”

Oh—looks like he wasn’t quite done shrieking.

You pap him gently but steadily, an amused little smile on your lips—he ain’t real frustrated yet, you know. He’s not bristling or anything, just makin’ noise to let all his energy out before it gets pent up and makes him angry for true. He leans himself into your hand once he’s done, grumbling quietly to himself. You open your mouth to speak, but the oven timer beats you to it, beeping noisily at the both of you.

“Motherfucker,” you say, delighted, hopping up to pull your grubloaf and your steaming pie out of the oven. You set both on the table, along with some plates and forks, because Karkat’s all about dining proper. Saw the both of you off a hunk of the grubloaf, set them on the plates, push one towards Karkat and pull one towards you.

“Let it cool, first,” Karkat warns, wagging a fork in your direction. You let your ears droop, give him the saddest eyes you can, but he scowls sternly at you. “You heard me, bulgemuncher. If you eat it now you’ll scald your fucking tastebuds off and you won’t be able to taste all that shitty slop you call food. Is that what you want?”

“Nooo,” you say, draping yourself across the table and staring forlornly at your food as it _cools._ Your stomach rumbles irritably at you, but you’re used to that, at least. “How long we gotta be waiting?”

“Just a couple minutes,” Karkat says, turning back to his husktop—time for a break from planning, you suppose. You tug out your own phone and brighten when you see Tavbro has answered you.

adiosToreador [AT] began trolling  terminallyCapricious [TC]

AT: sICK BEATS, HUH? wELL I HAVE TO SAY, i TOO HAVE SOME OF, uH, tHE SICKEST BEATS TO LAY RIGHT BACK AT YOU

AT: wHENEVER YOU’RE READY, tHAT IS

AT: tHEY ARE SOME PRETTY,

AT: sPECTACULAR BEATS, sO COME PREPARED

TC: OoOoH, i’m AlWaYs PrEpArEd FoR yOuR mOtHeRfUcKiN sIcK bEaTs, BrOtHeR! hOnK :O)

TC: lAy ThEm At Me So I cAn GiVe ThEm ThE pRaIsE tHeY sO uP aNd MoThErFuCkInG dEsErVe.

AT: oH! hI, gAMZEE! i DIDN’T THINK YOU WOULD RESPOND SO SOON, uH

AT: aCTUALLY

AT: tHE SICK BEATS MAY HAVE TO WAIT, uNFORTUNATELY

AT: mY ROOMMATE JUST CAME BACK AND HE, uH

AT: wELL

AT: hE ISN’T EXACTLY CONDUCIVE TO INSPIRING SICK BEATS

TC: Aw, ThAt Is A mOtHeRfUcKiNg CrImE, mOtHeRfUcKeR! yOuR sIcK bEaTs ArE dOwNrIgHt MiRaCuLoUs, AnD aNyBoDy WhO tAkEs ThAt MiRtHfUl InSpIrAtIoN fRoM yOu OuGhTa TaKe A sTeP bAcK aNd Up AnD rEcOnSiDeR wHaT tHeY’Re AlL aBoUt.

AT: hA HA, yEAH, i GUESS

AT: iT’S OKAY, rEALLY. hE ISN’T AROUND ALL THAT, uH, mUCH

AT: wHICH IS GOOD BECAUSE I DON’T REALLY THINK HE LIKES ME?

TC: sHiT, nO wAy! HoW cOuLd AnYbOdY nOt LiKe OnE oF mY sWeEtEsT bRoThErS? tHiS gUy SoUnDs PrEtTy DuMb, TaVbRo.

TC: HoW’D hE aLl Up AnD gEt InTo ThE sAmE sChOoL aS sUcH a SmArT mOtHeRfUcKeR lIkE yOuRsElF?

AT: hEH

AT: wELL, i DON’T KNOW THAT I’M THAT SMART

AT: oR THAT HE’S THAT DUMB

AT: bUT, uH, oUR CLASSES ALL SEEM TO BE GOING WELL SO THAT’S GOOD I GUESS

TC: hElL yEaH iT’S gOoD! i ToLd YoU, tAv. YoU’Re GoNnA bE tHe SmArTeSt MoThErFuCkEr On EaRtH :o)

TC: Oh ShIt

TC: eArTh

TC: HaNg On A sEc MoThErFuCkEr

terminallyCapricious [TC] is idle

You bolt to your feet practically shoutin’ with mirthful excitement—stand up so hard your goddamn horns slam into the fan (and thank messiahs it’s off). You sit right back down, after that. Sit down, and then lie down real fast, and then wallow around on the floor squallin’ at the top of your lungs because that motherfuckin’ _hurt_ somethin’ _fierce._ Normal-like it don’t hurt so much, but that’s when you’re beatin’ up on the business end of your horns, and the damn fan blade managed to slip inside the curve and knock you real good, right at the bases, right at where sets you howlin’.

Karkat fusses at you, kneels down and paps your face and turns your head this way and that, gettin’ his look on of your horns. You whimper up at him all high-pitched and hurtin’, little throbs of pain skittering up and down your back and all through your face and jaw. “You big goddamned idiot,” he hisses, rubbing along the middle of your horns—it helps a little, but you gotta cringe each time his warm little fingers near the bases. “What’d you have to go and do that for? That fan’s only been there for, oh, since you _built the goddamn place._ What the everloving _fuck_ did you have to go and headbutt it for? We’ve got enough to worry about without you giving yourself any more brain damage than you already have.”

“Motherfucker,” you apologize as solemnly as you can, squirming around to rest your head in his lap. He sighs all weary-like but smooths a hand through your hair, rubs his fingers against the nape of your neck and that helps the throbbin’, some. You hum appreciatively, and he keeps his fingers moving down the line of your spine, scarin’ all the pain away.

“Well, at least you didn’t crack anything,” your best brother mutters after a few minutes, sliding his hand back up to settle between your horns. “You should be fine. What got you excited enough that you wanted to pick a fight with the fan, anyway?”

You crack an eye open at him, thinking hard about that, and then—“Oh, motherfucker!” you exclaim, sitting up real fast again. Brother hisses at you about how you _just_ hurt yourself doing that, seriously, what the shit, but you flap a hand at him, leaning real close and shouting, _“Earth, motherfucker!”_

“I’m _literally right here, shitface, you don’t have to shout!”_ he shouts right back at you, and you honk mournfully at him. “What the fuck do you mean, Earth? Why the hell is that so exciting? If this is because of Tavros, I swear to god—”

You try to quiet your voice a little, although you’re wellin’ up with mirth and it just about makes you wanna _scream._ “Earth,” you repeat, looking urgently at him. “Earth, brother, Karkat. We could go to _Earth._ Get our immigration on, like all the other cullbait. We got friends there, don’t we? John, and Tavros and Sollux, too—motherfucking _miracles!”_ Okay, that last part was a little bit of a shout, but brother doesn’t yell back at you—he looks like he’s thinkin’, actually.

“Earth,” he repeats, in a little voice. His eyes have gone far-away. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever fucking heard. That might—actually be worth considering.”

You beam at him, wiggling in place because you just can’t sit _still_ when you’re so _excited._ The Messiahs seen fit to give you a most holy answer, a most mirthful blessing, yes they did! Must mean they agree with your protecting Karkat, heretic-blooded though he may be. You’re so _happy_ you could—you could—

Well, you could _honk,_ and so that’s what you do. You hop up and you bounce around your kitchen and you _honk,_ giggling mirthfully. “We’re gonna go to Eaaaarth, we’re gonna go to Eaaaaarth, we’re gonna see Tavrooos,” you say, your voice sing-songy.

“Oh, shut up,” your best friend says, but there’s a happy little gleam in his eyes as he watches you. “Sit down, you pan-shattered idiot, we haven’t decided that yet. There’s no way for us to legally get on a passenger ship, not without telling the guards my blood color, which will _still_ get me culled, immigrant or not. We’d have to sneak onto an export ship, which would _also_ be dangerous and fucking terrible, seriously.”

“But only for a little while,” you declare, your bones buzzing with glee. “We could hide out in the ship the whole trip, and once we got to Earth we could run away. Stay around all those squishy humans, what don’t care about your blood and couldn’t do you any harm even if they did. We could go see _Tavros—“_

“No, we couldn’t. If guards saw us getting off the ship—which they probably _will—_ then they’ll be looking for us. The human guards will be, too. They don’t like illegal immigrants much. That’s what John says, anyway. We can’t afford to lead those guards to any of our friends. We’d have to stay away from them.”

Your face falls a little, but—but still! If you can keep your best friend alive and happy, you’ve done your job. All else is secondary. “That’s okay, best friend! We can stay away until the guards stop looking, and then we can go visit. They can’t look for two little trolls _forever._ It’s not like we’re killin’ anybody.”

Karkat swirls his Faygo in his bottle, watching it twirl ‘round and ‘round the plastic in purple waves. “The logistics of it, Gamzee—it’d be nearly impossible. And how would we survive once we got there? We don’t speak their language, we don’t know their culture well, we wouldn’t know what to hunt or where to live—”

“We could get Tavros and Sollux and John to help us. Tavros knows all about that integratin’ stuff—he’s been there almost two sweeps now, you know? Sollux, too, and John’s been living there his whole entire life. They could teach us all about that human shit.”

“Finding an export ship from Alternia to Earth is—it would be—I mean, that’s not exactly public information.” Karkat’s jaw is working, and you can hear his teeth grinding nervously.

“Well, we’ve got a master hacker on our side, don’t we, best friend?” you ask, a tad smugly. This is a good plan, and you damn well know it. “You just up ‘n ask Sollux—he’d do most anything for you, you know. I’m sure he could give us the place and time of a ship what’s headin’ to Earth. He might even be able to take down some of the security cameras inside, leave us a little safe place to wander in.”

“I—” Karkat opens his mouth, then shuts it again. A little thrill traces its way from your horntips to your spine—brother doesn’t have a protest left. “Maybe. Okay, we’ll put that plan down in the ‘maybe’ column.”

And, well, when that plan turns out to be the only plan in the ‘maybe’ column, the ‘maybe’ column becomes the ‘fuck okay fine’ column. It takes some convincing for Karkat to warm to the idea, but once he does, his mind is set and you can see the wheels turnin’ behind his eyes.

“We’ve still got more planning to do,” he warns you as you finish your lunchtime pie, grinning giddily at him. “Don’t get too excited. We won’t be leaving for at least another quarter-sweep. I still have to talk to Sollux, and we need to pack a shitload of stuff, and we’ve got to start learning that stupid human language and—”

Best friend keeps on ranting about all you’ve got to do as he clears away the dishes. You help him wash and dry them, then snuggle yourself close and breathe the scent of him in. There’s new life in him, now. New hope. You think he holds his head a little higher, and it does you good, seeing your moirail like that. You wish you could have him that way forever.

You hope that maybe, on Earth, you will.

The two of you relax for the rest of the night. You play several games on your husktop, and watch some of Karkat’s romcoms, and then a few schoolfeeding videos because your littlest brother is insistent about you learning at least rudimentary concepts. More insistent than your lusus ever was—though that’s not saying much.

It’s with a wry little smile that you wait for your lusus on the beach, then, just before dawn. Karkat waits for you inside, gettin’ his watch on of the hoofbeast stew you’re having for dinner. This is the last night you’re going to wait like this, you’ve decided. You can’t afford to be waiting, not now that you’ve got Karkat and Earth and a motherfuckin’ future barreling towards you. Life moves on, and you must move with it. Every wiggler leaves their lusus; you’re just doin’ so a little bit earlier. Besides, if Karkat is willing to leave his own lusus for a better future, then you can, too.

It still hurts, though.

Hurts even worse when the old motherfucking goat actually has the nerve to show up.

You see him when he’s still far-off, his smooth white spine breaking the dark waves as he glides towards your beach. Within minutes, he’s hauling his front half up onto the sand, his heavy hooves leaving deep gouges. His head arches high above yours, fierce purple eyes shining in the moonlight.

“Hey, old goat,” you whisper, stretching a hand up towards him. He lowers his muzzle, and you slide your hand against his soggy fur, over the crest of his tattered ear-fins. He smells like salt and musk, like learning to walk and to fish and to fight. He smells like the world before sopor, clear and bright. “It’s been a motherfuckin’ while, huh?” (Almost two perigees, this time. You keep a careful count.)

Your lusus rumbles at you, low and deep in his barrel chest, and you see the tip of his tail flick out in the sea. You tangle your fingers in his beard, squeeze the saltwater from it. His lip pulls back, shows you a flash of sharp fangs, and you release him. He turns his head from you, and for a moment you feel a flare of panic and stumble after him—but you pull yourself to a halt. You won’t. Not anymore.

Those you need are all behind you, not in front.

The old goat dips his head into the sea behind him, and then he pulls up again. There’s a big, opaque pink animal in his mouth—a jellyfish, you think, like those what he used to bring you when you were too little to hunt for your own motherfuckin’ self. He drops it down on the beach beside you with a heavy thump and rumbles at you again, twisting his head so he can fix one of those big, flat-pupiled eyes in your direction.

“Thanks,” you say, your voice quiet. You don’t make a move towards the jellyfish. “I don’t think I’m gonna be needin’ that, though. I’m leaving soon. I won’t be here much longer.”

The old goat lets out a long, slow breath, settling his head down on the sand beside you. You reach out and touch the curve of his horn—it’s so very like yours, only bigger and colder and older. You wonder what it’s like, to be that old. You hope you get to live to see the day. He turns his head towards you, puffing a blast of cool air across your skin.

“You hear me?” you ask, tweaking one of his fins. “You goin’ deaf, motherfucker?”

The old goat draws his head up and reaches around behind you, hooking his teeth around your sides, fangs sliding neatly between your grubscars. Picks you up in his jaws, and the pressure on your sides has you going limp, feelin’ like a motherfucking wiggler all over again. He swings his head around and sets you down on his shoulders, rests his head on his own back and just keeps watching, watching, watching you. You gain your balance on his shoulders easily enough, though it’s not as familiar a place as it used to be.

“I said I’m leaving,” you repeat, looking right back at him. You gotta make him understand. You don’t want him to keep wondering when you’re returning. Shit ain’t fun. “I won’t be coming back.”

He blinks at you with a slow, heavy eyelid. Something twists hard in your chest, leaves you breathless with feeling. You don’t like it. Not at all. You feel a scowl creepin’ across your face, and it feels ugly, there. You’d much rather be smiling. You reach out and place a hand on his muzzle, raise your voice a little just to make sure he’s hearing you.

“I _said_ I’m up and _leaving, motherfucker!”_ Okay, so maybe that was a little bit more of a shout than you wanted—old goat growls at you, his whole body humming with the noise. Normal-like, you’d be chastised by that great big growl. Normal-like, it’d send you quailing back, patting him and trying to apologize your fuckin’ heart out.  

This is not normal-like.

Right now you are seeing your lusus for what's likely the very last time, and you are feeling some _very motherfucking unmirthful things._

“I’m leaving,” you hiss at him, prickling your claws against his muzzle. He jerks back, snorting at you, pupils widening to suck in the growing light. “I’m leaving, you motherfucker. Don’t you understand? I’m leaving and I’m never, ever coming back. You’re gonna be all alone here— all alone except for the dark and the cold and the other motherfucking monsters like _you.”_

Old goat gives himself a shake, trying to knock you from his shoulders, but you dig your fingers into his thick fur and cling on. Glare up at him. You’re burnin’, from your fingertips to your chest. You’ve got your teeth bared and your ears pinned flat, and still he doesn’t _listen._

“Until you get another fucking wiggler, right?” you demand, digging your claws down against his skin—his hide’s too thick to pierce, but he shows you his teeth all the same, pushing himself back out into the water. “Until you up and motherfucking _replace_ me? Until you fuck another grub up?”

The old goat is up to his shoulders in the water, now, his big tail rising up to splash down in a wave of cold water over your back. You scramble up his neck, your fingers trembling and your teeth chattering—with cold or bitter, terrifying anger, you’re not sure. You feel sick.

“I should cull you,” you say, voice real flat, right at the back of his motherfuckin’ head. That part of him is more familiar to you than any other goddamned part. “Should cull you before you get a chance to ruin another wiggler.”

It would be so easy. It would be so _easy_ to kill him. You could just decaptchalogue your clubs, slam them at the base of his motherfucking neck, where he’s open and vulnerable. You’d hear his bones shatter. You know you would. For a moment, the idea is a sickening temptation to you.

Fortunately, sopor’s still got enough a hold that you can tone that harshwhimsy right the fuck down. The old goat dives beneath the waves, then. Cold water slams you in the face, salty and stinging where it crams its way into your mouth and nose and ears, and you snap your second eyelids over your eyes just in time. You cling on for a few desperate seconds before you have to let him go. His fur slides between your fingers, slick and cold, and then he’s gone.

Your lusus is gone and you are adrift.

Ah, well. What’s motherfucking new?


	5. curl your claws up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mentions of childhood neglect
> 
> chapter track: "sleepy monster" by flatsound
> 
> plus some absolutely incredible [art](https://ceabu.tumblr.com/post/184696651201/no-gamzee-says-cupping-your-face-with-his-free) by @ceabu on tumblr!

You are peacefully tending to your hoofbeast stew when you notice that the world’s shittiest lusus has decided to pay his charge a visit. You pause for a second, standing up on tiptoe to look out of Gamzee’s windows. For all you’ve heard about his lusus, you’ve only ever seen the thing twice—not including today. He looks the same as you remember, big and white and goat-y, complete with a goatee.

Then Mr. Goatee decides to _dive into the fucking ocean_ with your moirail clinging to his back, and you’re out of the hive and bolting down the beach before you can blink.

“Gamzee! Gamzee, shit, _shit_ —” You scramble into the water, ignoring the biting cold because it’s absolutely _nothing_ compared to the biting terror in your chest. “Gamzee!”

You splash your way clumsily into the waves, your heart thundering. You are not a seadweller, holy shit, you are definitely not supposed to be here and every instinct knows it—but if your moirail dies in this ocean you will _tear it apart,_ you will somehow eviscerate and murder this entire body of water if it’s the last thing you _do—_

You see a flash of orange and you skid to a stop, chest-deep in the water. The waves do their damned best to knock you over, and you end up sputtering seawater from your mouth more than once as you squint into the growing dawnlight. There! Another flash of orange, of long, curved horns, and you’re scrambling forward again, shouting Gamzee’s name.

His head breaks through the waves a few feet in front of you, coughing and gasping for air. When he turns his eyes to you, they’re burning orange around gray irises, and your heart drops. Then you hear him rasp your name in a little, wretched voice, and your heart abruptly resumes beating. This is your moirail. Your Gamzee. How could you ever be afraid of him?

(It’s easy. It’s so easy to be afraid.)

You reach your arms out, and he plunges into them, clinging to you like a sopping wet (and very cold, _shit)_ rag. He’s shaking. You bury your face into the crook of his neck and shoosh him softly, running your hands over his back and shoulders. “Gamzee,” you murmur, once he’s stopped shaking quite so hard and his breathing has evened out. “Gamzee, shh, it’s alright—we have to get back to the shore now. I’ll take care of you there, okay? C’mon—”

You twine your fingers with his and squeeze, hard, then slosh your way back towards the sand. He follows you willingly enough, his head bowed and his ears drooping. It’s so pathetic you think your heart might shatter on each beat. You lead him up the dark sand, casting a glance at the pink gelatinous mass occupying a good portion of the beach.

“The hell’s that?” you ask, squinting at it.

“A jellyfish,” Gamzee says, and then promptly bursts into tears.

“Oh, no, oh—c’mon, shhh, shoooosh, it’s alright—” You turn around, pulling his head down to rest on your shoulder. You cup one hand around the back of his neck and twine the other through his hair. He crumples down against you, wailing into your shoulder like you’ve gutted him. “Oh, Gamzee, you fucking mess. I know. I know, shhh. Your lusus is a shit-guzzling excuse of a guardian, a monument of utter and absolute fetid custodial garbage. He doesn’t fucking deserve you.”

“I’m leaving—leaving him, fuck, motherfucking—” Gamzee sobs into your shoulder, his hands clutching tightly against your back and _shit_ you seriously need to trim his claws. “And he doesn’t even care, doesn’t give a motherfucking shit, _fuck—”_

“It’s not your fault,” you murmur, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. He tastes like salt and that stupid old goat. “It’s not your fault, Gamzee. He’s just a piece of shit, that’s all. It’s not because of anything you did. Any lusus would be _lucky_ to have you, okay? He’s an unappreciative fucking shitbag.”

Gamzee squeezes you tightly to his chest, almost lifting your feet off of the ground, and normally you’d gripe at him, but—well. He needs you. That knowledge is a warm ache in your chest. “I told him I wanted to cull him, I told him—that’s the last thing he’s gonna remember, I—I—”

“Hey, it’s okay,” you say, rubbing his back briskly to try and warm his skin. “It’s okay if you wanted to cull him, it’s okay if you hate him. He motherfucking deserves it, after the way he’s treated you.”

“I was so _mean—”_ he wails.

“You must be the only highblood in the whole fucking world who worries about being _mean,_ Gamzee,” you say, rubbing your fingers gently between his horns—you avoid the bases, though, worried that they may still be sore from his row with the ceiling fan earlier. “And so what if you were? I told you. That fucker deserves it. Just because you had the utter misfortune to get chosen by that beast in the caverns doesn’t mean anything. A lusus isn’t just an animal; a lusus takes care of you. That’s the whole _difference._ If he can’t be bothered to pity you, then he’s—fuck, he’s nothing more than a glorified fucking goat. We might as well cull him. He’d make a decent meal, at least.”

Gamzee sniffles against your shoulder, fat purple tears rolling down his face, his eyes still shielded by the translucent purple film of his second eyelids. His grip loosens, slightly, and you seize the chance to get your feet back on the ground and start leading him back towards the hive. “But he did take care of me,” Gamzee says quietly, stumbling after you and glancing back at that stupid jellyfish. “When I was a wiggler, real little, he—he’d do everything for me. Bring me food and teach me how to hunt ‘n shit. He was good. And then he just—stopped. I don’t know why, I don’t know what I did—”

“You didn’t do _anything,”_ you say firmly, tugging him into the hive and immediately charting a course for the ablutions block. Gamzee comes willingly enough—he’s still draped over you like a soggy blanket, sniffling miserably. “Not a single fucking thing. I bet you were a perfect grub, Gamzee. Stupid and annoying and loud, and motherfucking _perfect_ . He just wasn’t around enough to see it. Whatever made him—made him want the sea more than you, it’s not _your_ fault. It’s his. Something went wrong in him. Maybe he was just too old to take care of a wiggler the way he was supposed to.”

“You think?” Gamzee whispers, his voice hoarse.

“Yeah. Maybe,” you say, frowning. You hate making excuses for his shithole lusus, but Gamzee refuses to accept that the reason his lusus is a shithole is _because his lusus is a shithole._ “He should never have taken you from the caverns. I hope he never takes another goddamn grub. If he wants the sea so badly, he can just damn well stay there.”

“I hope he never takes another one, either,” Gamzee murmurs, letting you strip off his soaking clothes and urge him into the ablutions trap. You tug your own clothes off and follow him in, turning the water on and shivering as it hits your back. Once it’s warm enough, you draw him under the spray with you. “Not a single motherfucking grub more.”

“Not a single one,” you agree, leaning up to kiss the pointy tip of his nose. “But for what it’s worth, you did a pretty fucking good job growing up on your own. You didn’t need any stupid lusus to keep you alive.”

Gamzee leans down and wraps himself around you, and you fumble for a washcloth and lather it with soap, beginning to wash the salt from his skin. “Still wanted one,” he mumbles into your hair, and your heart tightens in your chest. “Still wanted him.”

You pause for a moment, sliding your hand up to rest over his heart. “I know. I know you did.” You lean your forehead against his collarbone. “I’m sorry.”

“‘s okay.” Gamzee squeezes you tightly, but you don’t complain. You just lean into him, close your eyes and feel the beat of his heart. “‘s okay, best friend.”

“No. It’s not. It’s really fucking not.” You sweep the washcloth across his arms and hands, his back and shoulders, feel the subtle shifts of his muscles beneath his skin. “And it never will be. What he did will _never_ be okay; he should never have done that to you, Gamzee. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right.”

Gamzee’s chest shudders with another shaky little breath, and you hold him close, for a second. Hold him close and let him breath, let him feel; after a moment, you breathe out a slow, quiet shoosh. Gamzee slumps against you, and you feel his lukewarm tears against your skin.

“Shh-shh-shh,” you murmur, pressing a soft kiss to his ear. “Shh, it’s alright. Everything’s going to be okay, Gam. I’ll make it okay, no matter what I have to do. I’d kill a million seagoats if it made you happy, I’d kill the whole fucking ocean for taking him from you, I’d—”

“Let me come home with you,” Gamzee says, his voice quiet but urgent. “Let me come back with you to your hive, Karkat. I already up and said my goodbyes—there ain’t a goddamn thing left for me here, naught but the dark and the cold and the motherfucking monsters and I can’t be alone with them again, I can’t. Please, brother—”

You cling more tightly to him, turning to bury your nose into his sodden hair. He’s shaking against you, his teeth chattering. He’s right. He’d be lost, if you left him here after this, and you know it. But to bring him back to your hive, to lead him so willingly into potential danger—

It fucking sucks. You know he’s willing and capable, you know he wants to share this burden with you, but you so fucking wish he didn’t have to. You wish you didn’t have this burden at all. You had wanted to leave him here, safe and sound, until the two of you were ready to abandon your planet. That plan crashes with all the grace of a seizing, broken-winged bird—poof! Down it goes, landing in a pile of bloody feathers and shattered hopes. You tighten your grip in his hair, twisting your fingers in his curls, though you’re careful not to tug.

“Yeah,” you finally say, your voice ragged. “Yeah, okay. You can come home with me, this time. It’s not like we’ll be there that much longer, anyway.”

Gamzee sags against you with a low whine of relief, and you lean against the wall of the trap so you can support his weight. You hush him softly as you finish scrubbing the salt from his skin and hair, then quickly rub yourself down before shimmying the both of you back under the spray until the suds are gone. Then you stay there a little longer, despite the fact you’re getting all pruney, because Gamzee is tipping his face up into the water and his shivering is slowing. You smooth your hands along his stomach and shoulders, press soft kisses to his throat and jaw and try hard to ignore the sting in your eyes when you hear the shuddering, grief-stricken sounds he makes.

Once you’ve both warmed up, you reluctantly turn the water off. Gamzee huddles down against you again, sniffling pathetically as you dry him off and help him into a pair of boxers and polka-dotted pants. You quickly scrub yourself dry and yank on your own boxers and shorts before enveloping your moirail in a tight hug again. You can’t stand to be away from him, not when he’s making those terribly sad noises and his eyes are still shining with a film of purple tears.

“C’mon, dumbass,” you murmur softly to him, stroking his hair out of his eyes. He blinks his second eyelids back, looks at you with eyes yellow and harmless and hurting. “We need to jam. This is the second time in a night, you know. We’re going to be fucking spoiled.”

Gamzee nuzzles up against your cheek, and you smooth your palm across the sharp point of his jaw. “Best kind of spoiled,” he says weakly, muscles rolling beneath your hand as he speaks. “Lead the way, little invertebrother.”

You herd Gamzee in the direction of the respiteblock, but freeze when you smell smoke on the air, lips peeling back from your teeth. If _anything_ threatens your moirail right now, you will fucking _devour it,_ omnipotent force of nature or otherwise.

“Oh,” Gamzee says quietly, wrinkling his nose. “Did you ever get to finishing that stew?”

 _“Fucking hell.”_ You lace your fingers with Gamzee’s and stomp towards the kitchen, growling irritably. Now is _not_ the time, seriously. Past Karkat is such a vacuous, grubshitting waste of Alternian resources. You slap the oventop off—luckily it hasn’t burnt anything but the stew—and then latch onto Gamzee again. “Are you hungry?”

Gamzee shakes his head, his arms snaking around your shoulders. “Not as can’t wait a while, best friend. Wanna jam more than I wanna eat, for sure.”

“Right, then.” You push him back towards the respiteblock again, doing your best not to trip over your feet _or_ his, because you’re definitely not releasing him right now. “Jam time it is.”

The two of you manage to get back to Gamzee’s respiteblock and snuggle down into his pile as soon as you’re there. He burrows into the very center, hooking his claws into one of your old shirts and burying his face against it. You curl up behind him as best you can, draping a leg protectively across his hip and wrapping your arms snugly around his waist. You pull a thick blanket across the two of you, then rest your head against his back, between his shoulders.

For a few seconds, the two of you just breathe. You’re rubbing the gland beneath your jaw absently against his back, scent-marking him, and you don’t even give half a fuck. He’s yours. He’s yours and he needs to know it, he needs to know he _belongs,_ he needs to know he’s _wanted._ Your fingers trace absent shapes along his stomach and ribs, and you feel his chest stutter with each breath.

“I told him I was leaving,” Gamzee tells you, in a voice barely above a whisper. You press a soft kiss to his shoulder, clicking quietly to let him know you’re listening. “I told him I wouldn’t come back, and he didn’t—he didn’t even care, didn’t even give half a motherfucking shit—”

“He probably couldn’t understand you. Lusii aren’t the smartest creatures in the world, you know.” You shift a hand up to massage the skin between his grubscars, and he shivers and relaxes, pressing back against you. “What else? What else did you say to him, hm? C’mon, you can tell me, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m here, let me help you.”

Gamzee is quiet for a moment longer, trembling in your arms, before he adds, “I—I told him I hoped he never got another wiggler—I told him I should cull him.” He tries to curl into himself, but you don’t let him. You shuffle around to lay in front of him, instead, and he wraps himself around you and buries his face in your hair. “I almost did. I motherfucking thought about it, best friend. I thought about—about snapping his neck with my motherfucking clubs, it would’ve been so _easy—”_

“Shh-shh-shoooosh, Gamzee, shhh.” You pap his chest softly, smooth little strokes of your palm to distract him from his anger. “You’re right. It would have been easy, and he would have deserved it.” Gamzee makes a soft, pained noise, and you slide your hand up to run your fingers across his cheek. “But I’m glad you didn’t. You’re better than he is. You’re better than any goddamn highblood has a right to be, and I’m so—I’m so _proud of you_.”

Gamzee’s breath hitches, a little choked-off whimper catching in his throat.

“Yeah, that’s right,” you say firmly, cupping his face in your hand and leaning back some, so you can meet his eyes. “I’m _proud,_ Gam. I’m so, so proud of you, all the time. I know I’m not the best at showing it, but fuck, I am. You’re brave and gentle and sweet and I pity you so fucking much it makes me want to eat my own goddamned shriveled-up excuse for a heart; it’s fucking disgusting how much I like you.”

Gamzee laughs wetly, pushing his face forward, into your hand. Pale purple tears are rolling down his face again, but he doesn’t move to hide from you. You chitter softly at him for that, let him know how much you approve. He shouldn’t hide, shouldn’t ever have to hide from you. “I motherfucking—motherfucking pity you just the same, best friend. Don’t ever doubt it.”

“I never do,” you admit, offering him a tiny smile. “You don’t let me. You’re good at that, you know. You’re a good moirail, a good best friend, a good fucking troll—and I know you were an awesome wiggler, whether your shitty lusus knew it or not.”

“You think?” Gamzee asks softly, resting the weight of his head against your hand. You lower it gently to the pile, rubbing your thumb absently across his cheek. “You’re not just sayin’ that to make a brother feel better?”

“I’m not just saying that,” you assure him, leaning your forehead against his and closing your eyes. “I mean it. I wouldn’t ever lie to you, not in a jam. You know that.”

Gamzee sniffles, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I know, best friend. It’s just—if I was such a good wiggler, why’d he have to _leave_ so fuckin’ often?”

“Because he was a shitty lusus,” you say. You’ve explained it before and you’ll explain it again, you know. Gamzee wants a good, solid reason for his lusus’ absence, and there isn’t one. It’s hard for you to convince him that there won’t ever _be_ one. “I don’t know what happened to make him that way, but it happened, and it wasn’t _ever_ your fault. You just got caught up in it.” You look quietly at him, overcome with pity for his whole, shitty existence. “Oh, Gam. Your lusus is the fucking cherry on top of the festering shit-cake that is your miserable life.”

Gamzee brings a hand up to rub across his eyes and you catch it, bringing it down to your lips and pressing a kiss to each bony knuckle. Wipe gently beneath his eyes with your own fingers, and he squeezes your hand. “Karkat.” His voice is ragged and so terribly, terribly tired. “I just wanted him to care. I only—I only ever wanted him to care.”

“I know.” You lean your cheek against the back of his hand—a soft, soothing croon instinctively rises in your throat, and you don’t bother trying to stop it, not when Gamzee so clearly needs to hear it. Shitty and awkward your pale noises may be, but they do seem to help him, and that’s all that ever matters. “I know you did. I wish I could make him care for you, Gamzee. I really fucking do. But I can’t—and he’s not worth this, anyway. You’ll feel better soon, I promise. Just give it time.”

Time is the only thing that will fix this, you know. Jams can ease the pain and confusion, but they can’t make a wound like this disappear overnight. All you can do is offer him what comfort you can and try to make the time pass a little easier. You snuggle closer to him, tangling your legs together and hooking your chin protectively over the top of his head, settling it between his horns.

“Let me take care of you,” you say. “Let me make you feel better for a little while, Gamzee. Then we can eat and sleep and tomorrow we’ll head back to my hive. You can meet my lusus—he’s an asshole, but you seem to be rather fond of assholes.”

Gamzee nuzzles up underneath your chin, mouthing softly at your jaw. You obligingly tilt your head, rubbing your scent gland roughly along his hair. “I’m sure he’s great, best friend. If he’s anything like you, he’s gotta be.”

“So is that a ‘yes’ on the taking care of you?”

Gamzee huddles down against you—he isn’t shy about many things, but goddamn if being cared for isn’t one of them. Well, you aren’t gonna help him out, this time. He won’t learn if you always give in and make his decisions for him, right? You let him squirm a while, until he finally caves and says, “If a brother all wants to, I wouldn’t have no kind of problem with it.”

“I want to.” You sit up, leaning down to kiss Gamzee’s forehead. “Good job, bulgemunch. I’m gonna go get some stuff—I’ll be right back, okay? Stay put.” You even go so far as to rumble at him—it’s a soft little rumble, not serious at all, but it still makes him shiver and sink down further in the pile, showing you his belly. The primal, stupid part of your thinkpan preens in satisfaction, seeing that.

You roll off of the pile and onto your feet, ducking quickly into the ablutions block and grabbing your claw-care kit, along with a soft washcloth. You dampen it with warm water, then slip into the kitchen. Roughly five minutes later you have two grubloaf sandwiches, along with two glasses of water. You return to the respiteblock and find Gamzee hugging your old clothes as tightly as he can. Pitiful. Absolutely fucking pitiful.

You lower yourself back into the pile and he cracks an eye open, flicking his ears in your direction. “Welcome back, best friend. Whatcha got there?” he asks, sniffing the air—his voice is still quiet, subdued, but he isn’t shaking anymore, and his eyes are clear of tears.

“Food.” You hand him one of the sandwiches, and he takes it slowly. “Eat that, and then I’m gonna trim your claws.”

Gamzee begins eating slowly, casting you little hesitant looks every few seconds—you chitter approvingly at him with each bite he takes, until he relaxes some. You finish off your own sandwich quickly, then wipe Gamzee’s face clean of tears and crumbs once he’s finished, too. You shove the glass of water into his hands and he takes the hint, sipping gingerly at it as you shuffle down to start on his toe-claws.

First things first, you clip each of his claws, which have grown abhorrently sharp since your last visit a few weeks ago. Once you’ve clipped them down to a manageable length—short enough not to tear through his socks, but still long enough to fight or climb with (though that’s less a concern with toe-claws, since they’re usually covered by shoes)—you file them down and smooth the tips out. Not _too_ smooth (no self-respecting troll would want _rounded_ claws, honestly), but smooth enough to keep them from snagging on things he doesn’t _want_ them to snag on. You dab skin softener onto his feet, massaging it in slowly and savoring the way his head tips back against the pile, eyes lidding with a pleased little chirr.

You reach for his hands, next, trimming his wicked claws down to more manageable points. More skin softener follows, and you take your time, massaging each of his bony fingers. You knead into the dense muscle beneath his thumbs, then rub slow, firm circles against each of his palms. Draw your own claws along the soft skin of his wrists, tracing the dim purple pulse of his veins and arteries. He whines at you—a breathless, trembling sound—and you lean down, pressing a soft kiss to the palm of his hand.

“Shh, you’re safe. I’ve got you. I pity you,” you murmur against his skin. His fingers curl, brushing against your cheek. “I pity you so fucking much, you absolute wreck. I’m going to take care of you. You’re my responsibility now—fuck your lusus. You don’t need him, you’ve got me, and I’m never, ever going to abandon you.”

Gamzee’s breath hitches, and you move to straddle his hips, curling down until you can press your lips to his bare chest. His heart beats beneath you, and you close your eyes and listen. He’s giving up everything for you: his home, his (shitty) lusus, his status, his future. You can never forget that. His life sits precariously in your filthy mutant hands, and you’re going to curl your claws up and around and _never let anything hurt him._

A soft, low growl rumbles in your throat—possessive and primal and protective, and Gamzee whimpers plaintively at you. You lick your teeth. You’re going to slaughter anyone who lays hands on your moirail, after what he’s done for you, after what he’s already _been through._ You drape yourself across him, as much as you can, tangling your legs and pressing soft kisses to his chest and collarbones.

“Never gonna leave you,” you mumble between your kisses, sliding a hand up to curl it into his hair. The strands are coarse and damp beneath your fingers, and you glide your claws deftly along his scalp and between his horns. “Never gonna let anybody hurt you, Gamzee. You’re _mine._ My moirail, my palemate, my diamond, fucking _mine—”_

“Yours,” Gamzee gasps out, his eyes squeezed shut as he tips his head back into your hand. “Yours, best friend, all yours—”

“Yeah, you are.” You rumble demandingly, and he tips his head submissively to the side, showing you the arch of his throat. You shift up, brushing your fangs across his flesh, biting softly beneath his jaw. His scent is strongest there, the scent that’s his and his alone, untainted by sopor or soap or any outside force. It’s a dark, musty scent—it reminds you of crushed leaves and thunderstorms, ancient and powerful, and it’s sharp on your lips and tongue as your teeth press against his scent gland.

Gamzee shudders beneath you, his hands coming up to grip your back. “Karkat,” he breathes, tipping his head so he can nuzzle urgently against your face and neck, spreading his scent along your skin. You chitter approvingly at him, holding still for a moment so he can finish marking you. “Karkat, Karkat, best friend, brother, my Karkat—”

“Yeah, I’m here,” you murmur, gently guiding him back against the pile. He moves with the slightest of pressures, responsive and obedient and _fucking perfect._ “I’m right here, I’ve got you. We’re okay. We’re gonna be okay, gonna be safe. Never gonna let anybody hurt you, never fucking again, _never—”_

You curl your fingers around one of his horns and he whines, pressing into your touch. The keratin is cool and smooth and hard, and you may need to polish it soon, but he’s healthier than you’ve ever seen him, and you want to believe that part of that is because of you. You’ve been taking care of him, and it fucking _shows._ You still hesitate before you touch his hornbeds, though, your fingers soft and uncertain. “Are you sore here?” you ask, dipping down to brush your nose against his. “Did the fan bruise you?” You’ll fucking _murder_ that fan. It’s not like he’ll be needing it anymore, anyway.

Gamzee cracks an eye open, and his pupil is enormous—there’s a barely sliver of silver iris around it. “Not sore, motherfucker,” he rasps, pushing his hornbeds up against your palm. “Not sore at motherfuckin’ all. Please. Please, Karkat, please—”

And how the _fuck_ could you ever say no when he asks like that?

You press your fingers down into the roots of his horns, gentler than usual but still nice and firm. A shaky little moan leaves his throat and he arches up against you, clinging tightly. “Yeah,” he breathes, and you can feel the soft hum of his purr starting in his chest. “Yeah, just like that, brother. Feels so motherfuckin’ good, you’re so motherfuckin’ good, I pity you so much—”

You lean down, nuzzle along his bare face and listen to the sweet thrum of his purr. You run one hand across his chest, just to feel the vibrations beneath your palm, while you wrap your other hand tightly around his horn and _squeeze._ His breath hitches, his purr hitching with it, and you feel his fingers tremble against your back before he spreads them wide. He’s still talking, murmuring sweet little praises in your direction, and you figure if he can still talk you aren’t doing well enough.

You keep your fingers tight around his horn and twist them, pressing your thumb down into his hornbed, down into that little sweet spot that pushes him under, pushes him into _peace_ and _rest_ and _submit._ His jaw goes slack for a moment, his words halting mid-sentence as he instinctively tips his head to the side, shows off the long, vulnerable arch of his throat. You chitter warmly at him, your own heart so full of goddamn pity and pride you think it might just explode in a disgusting conflagration of ugly red blood and sticky flesh bits and okay _gross—_ but the sentiment stands.

You love him. You love him so, so much.

You’re not quite sure how long the two of you stay like that, wrapped up together with your hands on his horns and his skin and his hair, loving loving _loving_ every single bit of him. When you finally tug him along to the ‘coon, the moons have well and truly set and the sun is casting fierce golden squares of light along the walls. You curl up around him, and he presses his head to your chest and lets you hold him close.

You know the evening will bring its own troubles, but for this night, you are content.


	6. let that be a lesson to you, o alternia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings: none for this chapter! 
> 
> chapter track: "grandpop's uke" by forrest

“That sure is a motherfuckin’ long list, best friend,” you decide when Karkat shows you the packing list he’s drafted on his husktop. Takes a good minute of scrolling just to get through the whole motherfuckin’ thing, and impressive it is. “You up and think we’re gonna be liable to get all that shit squirreled away on a ship?”

“If we pack carefully, yeah,” Karkat says, fiddling around on his husktop for a second, claws click-clacking across the keyboard. “If we pack like a bunch of rabid, hoarding furbeats before the world’s darkest and most miserable dim season sets in—no. So use your sylladex wisely and pack your stuff _neatly.”_

Across the block, your own husktop chimes, and you amble over to it. Duck down and see your brother’s familiar gray text shouting at you on Trollian.

“That’s your part of the list,” he explains, standing up and stretching himself out. You hear his spine crack as he moves, and you wince for him. He’s been stressin’ himself since you both woke this evening—but as much as you don’t like it none, you figure it’s reasonable. This immigration shit ain’t no little deal. Even your dumbass self knows that. “Pack what you can now. If you’re missing anything, we can order it or get it from the shop later—just put a star by it so we know what we need.”

“You got it, bro.” You nod, real determined to do good by him. You don’t wanna stress him more than he’s already stressin’ himself, so you hop to it quick as you can—which is not real quick, you’ll admit, being as you just had your first pie of the day, but it’s still a mite quicker than your usual. You slip into your respiteblock and snag your polka-dotted rucksack from its place in the closet. It’s all dusty-like, and the zippers don’t function quite as sleek as they used to. Old as shit, this thing, but still good for carryin’, as it’s all up and made to be.

For the next couple hours, you get your pack on as best you can. You do as your best friend told you, filling your sylladex and folding things up nice and neat as you set ‘em in your rucksack, one after the other—socks and shirts and pants and jackets and all kindsa winter gear (in case it’s cold on Earth, your littlest brother says) and boxers and shorts and toiletries and chargers and your husktop and greasepaint and packets of sopor concentrate and a single horn and all _manner_ of shit you ain’t even thought you needed. You trust your best friend, though. No doubt he knows what’s best.

When you finally finish packing, your brother is waiting for you in the rumpusblock. He’s got his own tattered black rucksack leaned against his legs, and he’s starin’ out the window at your sea. “All done?” he asks, flicking an ear back at you.

“Yeah, all motherfuckin’ done.” You sidle up behind him and set your chin on his shoulder. He leans back against you, and you feel a pleasant swell of pity for him. “We fixin’ to head out, brother? Get this show all up and on the road?”

Little brother hesitates a minute, chewing his bottom lip, before he nods, real stiff. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go, before we change our minds.”

Well, you certainly ain’t gonna change _your_ mind, but you figure if your brother wants to be goin’, you’ll be goin’. Best you do get on before he gets caught up in his doubting again, at the very least. He plunges out ahead of you, into the sand, moving towards the forest in those determined marching strides. You step out your hive after him, patting the doorway one last time. Aches somewhere down in your chest, to be leaving. Aches soft and bitter and sweet. You planned this hive out yourself, down to the very foundation, and watched it built brick by brick with your very eyes. It is yours, as well and truly as a thing could ever be.

“Bye, motherfucker,” you murmur to it. For a moment, you think on slipping back inside, on getting your goodbyes on with each and every block what you raised yourself up in. The moment passes, though. A dwelling place this may be, but you will dwell on it no longer. You’re a troll, bred and hatched to leave things behind—lusii and hives and blood-drowned planets. Still, you gotta get your grateful on as you turn and follow after your little brother, who’s paused to wait for you at the edge of the trees.

A good hive it was. A good home. Kept the sun and rain out, warded away any motherfuckers what might have intended you harm. Had dark little spaces to hide out in if you got too jittery, and big windows to let the moonlight stream in. Lit up beautifully in the nighttime, with all sorts of miraculous colors, paintings and posters gettin’ their sprawl out on the walls. Most comfortable (and only) ‘coon you ever did sleep in, soft and warm and all painted in your palemate’s almost-color. Little marks all over the table, ‘specially from when you were learning to write—liked to carve your runes near about everywhere when you were a young wiggler. Clawmarks along the walls, too, from you markin’ up your territory when you got hit by the inclination to claim what was yours—the marks stretched higher and higher the taller you got, with the lowest ones just a foot or two off the ground, a wee wiggler’s scratchings. Each and every corner smelled like you, settled and familiar, and always there was the low rush of the ocean to lull you to sleep when your lusus wouldn’t.

You don’t realize you’re cryin’ until Karkat reaches up, puts a little rough hand on your face to wipe away the tears and says, “I’ll find you another one, Gamzee. I’ll find you another home. Fuck, I’ll build you one from the ground up, if I have to. I will be your miserable, nook-chafing subservient carpenter droid for as long as it takes to make you happy.”

You smile at him, though it feels wobblier than usual—it’s no less real for that, though. You mean it right down into your bones when you tell at him, “You don’t need to be doing that, best friend. You’re home enough for this motherfucker.”

Brother’s face does a funny little twist, his own eyes fever-bright for a moment, and you lean forward and kiss his forehead. Lace your fingers with his and squeeze tight. Your hive raised you up in its walls, but your palemate loves you in his sturdy little diamond, and you know well where you belong. You lead him into the forest, the branches casting cool shadows over the both of you, and he follows.

The two of you walk for a good, long while. The breeze is brisk but warm, sweeping the wild scents of the forest at you—hoofbeasts and featherbeasts alike, dirt and mildew and leaves. Ain’t the scent of another troll anywhere near, for which you are immensely grateful. Still, your little brother leads you from winding path to winding path, unwilling to stay on any one stretch of land for too long. Hurts your heart, a little, seeing how paranoid he is—but you suppose you’d best be grateful for it, seeing as it’s kept him alive this long.

When the both of you finally stop in a clearing your best friend seems to recognize, the two moons are blazing away high above your horns. “You ready for lunch, bulgesucker?” he asks, taking a seat near the base of a stumpy, fat tree. Digs through his rucksack and pulls out a plastic bag with what looks like a hoofbeast sandwich inside, along with a handful of nuts and berries. Tosses it in your direction, and you take a seat across from him and tear it open.

“Mm—this’s motherfuckin’ bitchtits, bro,” you tell him through a mouthful of your sandwich, your stomach rumbling heartily in agreement. “Well motherfucking done.”

He snorts, but there’s a pleased little gleam in his eyes as he digs into his own food. The two of you keep your quiet as you eat, too focused on swallowing to speak. Once you’ve filled up most of your stomach, you stretch out with a happy sigh. Toss one last berry into your mouth, popping it between your fangs before you swallow—it’s tart and sweet, a little warm from the travel but no worse for that. You lean back against your own tree, eyes half-lidded with contentment. This is the motherfuckin’ _life._ You have food, have sopor, have drink, have a warm breeze and dense underbrush to keep you safe and sheltered, have your best friend within arm’s reach. The only thing missing’s a chunk of claimed territory, but you could sort that out quick enough.

You think you wouldn’t mind hiding out here, on Alternia. Sure would be easier than travelin’ to Earth. You’re confident you could protect the two of you here, but you’d not want to make your brother worry—so if he wants to leave, then leave you will. Plus, it sure oughta be easier to defend him once you get to Earth, you imagine. Those soft-skinned, hornless little beings what make their home there won’t stand nary a chance against you. Hell, they won’t stand nary a chance against your best friend himself, even. He’s a badass motherfucker in his own right—only you do worry about him around other trolls, sometimes, him bein’ so little and warmblooded, without even a psychic ability to protect himself.

You think he’d be hells of mad if he knew you thought that about him, though.

Across from you, your little brother tips his head back, watching the branches above you. Tiny, dark-colored featherbeasts dart back and forth across the stars, chirping merrily amongst themselves. Badass noisemakers, those featherbeasts. One catches your eye, diving down to land on a low branch what has a nest of twisted branches, black mud, and glossy feathers restin’ on it. The featherbeast perches next to the nest, an iridescently-colored insect caught up in its beak. Three tiny, bald heads pop up out of the nest, squawkin’ raucously—ugliest things you ever did see, and you can’t help but laugh at ‘em.

“What?” your best friend asks, shooting you a bemused look. “What’s so funny now, chucklefuck?”

“Featherbeasts, best friend,” you explain, grinning at him. “Look at those little ugly ones—how you think their ancestor can even stand to look at ‘em without crackin’ hisself up? He went and made those—made those featherless little motherfuckers what don’t do nothin’ but scream at him. That’s fuckin’ funny shit, Messiahs—a motherfuckin’ _joke—”_

Karkat snorts, tossing his head back so he can gulp down the last bite of his sandwich. “Yeah, real fuckin’ funny. That’s what happens when you let adults raise grubs. They get ugly and needy and useless—and the grubs aren’t much better. Let that be a lesson to you, O Alternia, in how to evolve the world’s most worthless creature: _parenting._ ”

You stand up, move over to get a better look at that adult featherbeast and his ugly-ass descendants. The little guys don’t seem scared of him at all, and _woah,_ would you look at that? Adult drops the insect into one of those gaping little beaks, and it gets snapped up real quick. He doesn’t even move to punish his descendant for takin’ his food. Huh. Must be a real pushover adult—

You get the real sudden urge to put hands on those little featherbeasts, see what the adult does. Probably nothin’, if he’s so lenient with those little guys. And, ayup, once you get your hand close to the nest, he flutters off with a startled squawk. For some reason, you feel a little bit disappointed about that. Ah, well. You suppose you can’t expect too much from an adult what plays servant to its descendents.

You’ve almost got your fingers around one of the little featherbeasts when all of the fuckin’ sudden there’s something small slamming into your head, and now _you’re_ the one squawkin’. You flail a little bit, and your hand sends the featherbeast what attacked your hair sailin’. He surges right back in, though, battering you with his dark wings and pecking something fierce at your scalp and horns.

When you stumble back, yelping for fear of your life (gettin’ murdered by a pissed-off featherbeast would be a hellishly motherfuckin’ funny way to die, but you ain’t ready _yet)_ , the featherbeast backs himself off a little. He lands on a branch just above his nest, his feathers all puffed out and his beak open and angry as he squawks noisily at you. There’s another noise, too, one you recognize but one that’s mighty uncommon—

Karkat is _laughing._

You whirl around to look at him, get a good and solid motherfucking eyeful of his mirth, so rare and precious is it—his mouth is open, nubby teeth all agleam in the moonlight, eyes squeezed shut and crinkled at the edges as his stomach jumps with his laughter. The sound is raspy and hiccuping and motherfucking _perfect._ Makes your own self laugh, he does, a wide grin on your face. Feels like you’re glowing, in the face of his happiness. His is the most holy mirth you have ever had the Messiahs-granted honor of witnessing—of this you are sure.

“You _dumbass,”_ he says through his laughter, and when he looks at you his eyes are shining. “What the fuck did you go and do that for? Fucking hell—you should have seen the look on your _face—”_ He hugs himself around the middle, still giggling, and you lower yourself to sit beside him and wrap him up in the _biggest, tightest_ hug, so you can feel his mirth quivering through his little body.

“Worth bein’ attacked by a thousand raging featherbeasts to see you laugh, best friend,” you tell him earnestly, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. He pushes against your chest, but only lightly—for show more than anything else, you know. He’s trying to calm himself back down, his breath hitching and slowing, and you regret that a good motherfuckin’ deal, but you tolerate. False laughter’s a bitter sin, after all, no matter how lovely it is. “You’ve got the prettiest motherfuckin’ laugh I ever was blessed to hear. What I wouldn’t do to hear it every day I could, best beloved.”

“Just because your clown-cult religion glorifies creepy-ass laughter doesn’t mean—”

“Nah, bro.” You nuzzle up against his cheek, and he slips his arms around your waist, finally huggin’ you back. “It’s not just that. It’s ‘cause that means you’re _happy,_ you dig? I wanna see you that happy every day of your motherfuckin’ _life,_ Karkat. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it so.”

Karkat goes real still in your arms, for a second, and you can see his face turnin’ red under his skin. You dip down and kiss one burnin’ cheek, and he scowls something fierce at you. “Fuck you,” he says, turning to bump your chest with his horn. There ain’t the slightest bit of venom in his voice. “You romantic bastard—did I _look_ like I needed to be reminded how very sickeningly in love with you I am? No, no I did not, you great heaping sack of pestilent hoofbeast shit—who gave you the right to be so goddamn sappy, seriously?”

You laugh, leaning your head against his and enjoying the way his voice rises and falls, the way he strings his words together so artistic-like—you bet your brother could lay down some sick rhymes, if he had a mind to. “Just speakin’ the truth as is in my heart,” you assure him, patting his hip. “Naught but honesty from these lips, best friend.”

“I know,” Karkat grouches, leaning back against you and resting his hand over yours. “That’s what makes it even worse, you cliché, blithering nookwhiff. Fuck. I pity you so much and it’s all your fault, damn you.”

You squeeze him close and close your eyes, lettin’ him get his rant on. He’s not working himself up too much—more griping just for the habit of it, you think—so you don’t feel a need to quiet him down, especially when he’s getting his grumble on about how much he pities you. That’s nice to hear. Real motherfuckin’ nice. And the cadence of his voice is nice, too, rough and familiar. A brother could fall asleep, listening to that voice. You start hummin’ along with his words, following an absent, whimsical tune, until he finally hushes and pats your face.

“Pale for you, stupid,” he finishes his tirade with, and you show him all your fangs in one big-ass smile because ain’t those just the most _beautiful_ words?

“Pale for you, too,” you say right back at him, kissing the tip of his horn. “Paler than motherfuckin’ sun-bleached bone, best friend.”

Little brother makes a content little sound, and the two of you chill a piece longer, listening to the featherbeasts and breathing in the warm air. You’d be more than happy to stay there the rest of the night, curl up in the thick brush and sleep the day away, but Karkat insists you move forward. Wants to be home before sunrise, lest his lusus get more worried than he already has been.

Must be nice, having a lusus what notices you’re gone.

So the two of you scoop your rucksacks up again, slinging them over your shoulders and buckling them across your hips and chests. You follow your brother onwards, deeper and deeper into the twisting forest. Don’t recognize anything around you now, even by scent, but that’s alright. Best friend walks with purpose in his stride, like he knows exactly where he’s going and why, and his confidence is enough for the both of you.

Still, you ain’t at his hive by sunrise. He grumbles about it, but whips out his suncloak and goggles and fusses at you to do the same. You obey, decaptchaloguing your cloak and dropping your rucksack again, so you can drape the cloth over your back and shoulders. Duck your head, and your best friend kindly fastens the cloak’s hood around your horns and buttons it up beneath your chin. You do the same for him, and he stands sweet and still and lets you, then tugs his dark-tinted goggles down over his eyes and motions for you to copy him. Move onward, after that, eating up the distance quick as you can as the sun arches up off the horizon.

The two of you are panting by the time the forest starts thinnin’ out. It’s not quite second summer yet, but it’s motherfuckin’ near enough that the sun scorches the earth something fierce. Your cloaks are pale enough to reflect most of the light, but they’re thick, and they don’t let much heat in but they don’t let it _out,_ either. Sweat slicks across your hides, sticky and salty and damp, and Karkat bitches somethin’ fierce about it. For all that bitching, though, he handles the heat better than you do—you gotta stop every little bit to pant and chug some water and resist the temptation to just curl up in the shade and wallow there until the sun sets again, because you ain’t _made_ to be so warm, goddamn.

So it is that when you finally see Karkat’s hive, you are well and truly grateful. He pauses at the edge of the forest, resting a hand on a tree and squinting out across the land. You do the same, blinking the sting of sweat from your eyes. It’s a strange land, here, no sand or sea in sight. Hills roll out and away from you, speckled with trees and tiny, dark shrubs. Stout hives sit near about right on top of each other, their lawnrings practically brushing. You knew warmbloods usually lived close together, but this is unnerving—no wonder your little brother is so wary of his home.

Not so wary of it that he built it timid, though, you notice with a grin. You recognize his hive right off—it’s over to one side, made of stocky dark stone with gleaming orange windows. Most noticeable, though, are the bright red awnings on the outside.

“Thought you didn’t want trolls knowin’ your color, best friend?” you say, glancing down at him.

He clicks his teeth grouchily at you. “Wiggler me thought it was a good idea—and has proven, once again, that Past Karkat is a bulgesucking, naïve imbecile who deserves to be culled for his arrogance.” He stomps forward, heading down the hill towards his hive, and you follow close behind. “I just—never got around to taking them down. I’ll do it tonight.”

“Nah, bro, you shouldn’t. I like it. It gives it a little flare—and ain’t nobody gonna think it’s your color, anyway. They probably just think you’re an eccentric motherfuckin’ decorater, that’s all.”

Best friend shakes his head. “No. I’ll take them down. We don’t need to be drawing unnecessary attention to ourselves, especially now that you’re here. It’s not worth my infinitesimal smattering of pride to keep them up.”

“Well—whatever a brother thinks is motherfuckin’ best,” you concede. Much as you’d like for him to feel comfy expressin’ himself, you don’t want him in danger, either. “Let me help you? We can get at it after breakfast, if you’d be amenable to—”

You break off, all of a sudden, because the door to your best friend’s hive slams right the fuck open and an absolutely furious screeching heads straight for your ears. A blur of angry white follows it, and then you see your little brother’s lusus for the first time. He’s pretty big, compared to you—standing up on his hind feet he’s taller than both you and your horns together. He’s got sharp spines bristlin’ all down his back, and some fierce-lookin’ pinchers what he snaps in your direction. He lunges at you the second he gets you in his sights, and you stumble backwards on instinct, because ain’t no lusus gonna rush a troll what it doesn’t wanna strife with and you got no desire to strife with any lusus, let alone _Karkat’s._

“Oh— _shit,_ no, fuck—” Karkat leaps in front of you, and the lusus grabs at him, instead. You feel a momentary flash of fear for him, but you figure his lusus would be the last beast on Alternia to hurt your little brother. (Right? You don’t know much about good lusii, but they don’t hurt their charges, right? _Right?)_

Lusus gets his pincer on the back of Karkat’s neck, picking him up with a firm grip on the hardy skin there and shrieking right into his face. Karkat goes limp at the hold, but still he pins his ears and twitches his claws, a hiss rattling in his throat. “Put me down, you goddamn bucketfucker! My god, you’re the fucking _worst._ I’ve been gone for three nights and _this_ is the greeting I get, you selfish clusterfucking bucket of miscellaneous discharges?!”

Lusus makes a funny clicking, grating noise way down in his throat and then flings your brother back at the hive. Brother’s so little, he flies quite a bit—soars right in through the open door, he does, and you hear a crash and a yelp from inside. Then you’re facing down a pissed-off motherfucking lusus and you’ve got no fucking _clue_ what to do. Weren’t no lusii what came to challenge you, as far-off as your hive was built from others, and your lusus certainly didn’t ever strife with you once he’d taught you to fight.

You ain’t gonna strife this lusus, though. Ain’t no _way._

So you drop, instead, curl yourself up into a harmless little ball on the ground—try to show at him you’re not a threat, not to him or his. Feel his pincer seize tight around your ankle, and then he scoops you up, too, hoisting you high into the air. You dangle upside-down in his grip, your eyes wide as you look at his open maw—lots of teeth, he has, and they’re far sharper than Karkat’s. You gulp.

“Uh—hey, motherfucker,” you try, clearing your throat. “I—”

Lusus takes in a deep breath, then blasts it out at you in an ear-splitting scree. Well. You suppose your best friend had to get his volume from somewhere.

“You stupid motherfucker!” Karkat howls, and you see him running at his lusus from out his hive, brandishing a sickle. Looks unharmed, thank Messiahs. “Put him _down!_ You’re so embarrassing, holy _fuck—”_ He jumps up, slamming his feet into his lusus’ back, and the lusus stumbles and drops you—you near about land right on your horns, but you twist around at the last second and take the fall on your shoulder, instead.

Damn. Maybe you were lucky, having a lusus what left you alone. This is exhausting.

Lusus spins around to face Karkat, shrieking at him and snapping his pincers. Karkat faces him down, shoulders hunched and teeth bared. “Come on, then!” he says, turning his sickle so it catches the flash of the sunlight. “You wanna go, let’s go—it’s been too long since I got to beat you into an odorous, gelatinous fucking pulp, crabshitter!”

His lusus springs at him, and the two of them clash in a blur of white suncloak and carapace. You sit up, brushing grass off of your side and inching back towards the edge of the lawnring. You figure all this noise must’ve woken the neighbors, and—oh, there’s another lusus watching you from the hive over, its rusty-red eyes gleaming malevolently. You scoot yourself closer to Karkat’s hive, again. Better the crabshitter than a cholerbear who’s wiggler you don’t know, you figure.

When you look back at the fight, Karkat’s got his legs wrapped around his lusus’s neck, one arm wrapped tight around the crest of his head and the other arm busy whackin’ him right between the eyes with one balled-up fist. He’s shrieking with rage—not even using words anymore, though you doubt the lusus would understand ‘em, anyway. Lusus has a hold of Karkat’s sickle, waving it back and forth and chittering angrily.

Karkat throws his weight backwards all of a sudden, and it topples his lusus down onto the ground. The two of them wrestle there for a while, and it causes your guts to twist nervously—you don’t like anybody slingin’ a sickle around near your best friend, even if it’s his lusus. Finally, to your relief, Karkat gets his lusus in a good headlock. The beast stills himself for a moment, breathing hard.

“There, fuck! Are you _done?”_ Karkat demands—he’s panting, too, his suncloak all dirtied and tattered from their strife. “I can’t fucking believe you, seriously. This is my _moirail._ We do not fling moirails around like worthless sacks of meat jelly!”

The lusus hisses, but you think maybe the spikes on his back are starting to lay a little bit flatter.

“Oh, shut up. He’s not going to hurt us. I’d never bring him here if I thought he would,” Karkat says, scowling. “Stupid. Why do you always overreact about everything? I hate you so much, so platonically.”

Lusus brings a pincer up, and for a second you think he’s gonna tear Karkat off of him—but he settles his arm around Karkat’s back, instead, roughly pulling him closer. You see your best friend relax, letting out a little breath. His grip on his lusus’ neck loosens, and he smooths a palm across one big, white-plated shoulder, instead. You feel a pang of envy somewhere deep down in your chest.

“Dumbass,” he mutters, leaning his forehead against his lusus’ jaw. “I fucking missed you. Here—Gamzee, come say hi. If he tries to hurt you I’ll cut his goddamn arm off— _yes I will,_ crabshitter, you want to try me?”

You hesitate, then stand and move towards Karkat—keeping him most carefully between yourself and the lusus. Lusus lifts his spikes a little more as you get closer, and you lean back. Karkat reaches out, though, twisting his little fingers into your sleeve and yanking you forward. “Gamzee, meet my asshole lusus. Asshole lusus, meet Gamzee. There. Introductions complete. Now can we _please_ move on with our shitty lives without trying to kill each other?”

“Uh—sure, bro,” you say, swallowing hard as the lusus narrows one flinty eye at you. “Whatever you say.”

Karkat takes your hand, giving it a tight squeeze before tugging you even closer. Your stomach flips, and you whine pleadingly at him. Don’t wanna piss off his lusus anymore than you already have just by bein’ here—that ain’t no kinda motherfuckin’ fun. Little brother chitters comfort at you, though, and then presses your hand firmly against his lusus’ shoulder.

Huh. Lusus is warm. Warm as your Karkat, almost. His carapace is smooth and hard beneath your fingers, and he lets out a weary little sigh when you touch him. Sounds like giving up, to you. You relax a little bit, a tiny smile flickering across your face. Motherfuckin’ _awesome._ Here’s a lusus what doesn’t give out half-hearted attention. Even angry attention is better than _nothing,_ you think.

“Right, very touching,” Karkat says, huffing and releasing his lusus to stomp back inside. “Now I’m going to go clean up the broken mirror that you _flung me into you crabshitter.”_

You laugh and follow after him, ducking yourself into the hive with a sense of bubbly warmth. Lusus grumbles low in his chest before he follows you in, closing the door and locking it, and the three of you are surrounded by dark and quiet and safety. It’s gonna be good here, you decide. Real motherfuckin’ good.


	7. like everything is going to be okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: none! this'll be our last peaceful chapter for a while, folks u.u
> 
> chapter track: "nemo egg" by thomas newman

It’s your first night with Gamzee in your hive, and so far neither of you has been murdered. It’s as much as you’d hoped for. The two of you go to ‘coon as soon as you convince your lusus you aren’t bringing a serial killer into your hive _and_ clean up the mirror he’d so helpfully thrown you into. Your ‘coon is smaller than Gamzee’s, but you both twist your limbs around until you somehow fit into the sopor together.

When you wake up, you’re crammed against the wall of your ‘coon and moving is a _tiny_ bit difficult with the way Gamzee’s elbow intimately greets your sternum. You groan and squirm out of the slime, and Gamzee sprawls out into the newly-opened space you’ve left behind. You perch on the edge of your ‘coon, peering down at him—his face is smooth and unpainted, jaw slack around all those ridiculous highblood fangs. His fingers twitch gently as he dreams, his curls sprawled wildly around him. He’s fucking adorable. How’d an asshole like you get so lucky, seriously?

Once you’ve had your fill of creepily watching your moirail sleep (it’s a rare enough occurrence—usually he’s the first one up), you slide your slippers on and stumble in the direction of the ablutions block. You blow your nose, rinse the sopor from your skin and wearily slog your way through your morning ablutions, then tug on clean clothes and pad into your kitchen to make breakfast. You’ve got more food in your hive than Gamzee does, that’s for sure—your lusus always makes sure you have enough.

In that regard, at least, you’re grateful to him.

As the moons begin to rise, you prepare a bowlful of scrambled eggs and a plate of hot bacon to go with it. You take half of the food and munch absently on it as you pull your husktop out and set it on the table. You’ve got some serious trolling to do.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling  twinArmageddons [TA]

CG: GOOD EVENING, ASSHOLE. 

CG: OR MORNING OR NIGHT OR WHATEVER FUCKASS SHITTY TIME IT IS ON YOUR WORTHLESS SCUMBAG OF A PLANET. 

CG: I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.

TA: oh, two what do ii owe the iimmense plea2ure of haviing you 2ummon me at two iin the fuckiing morniing, kk?

CG: DON’T.

CG: DON’T MAKE ME SUCKING UP TO YOU ANY HARDER THAN IT HAS TO BE, CAPTOR.

CG: TRUST ME, I REGRET IT ENOUGH FOR THE BOTH OF US. IN FACT, THE ABSOLUTE SHAME THAT IT CAUSES ME TO REQUEST ASSISTANCE FROM A HUSKTOP-HUMPING NERD LIKE YOU IS CURRENTLY MANIFESTING ITSELF AS A STRANGELY COMPULSIVE URGE TO EAT MY OWN FINGERS.

CG: LET US NOT ENCOURAGE THAT URGE.

TA: you really make talkiing two you a charmiing event, you know that?

TA: briighten2 up my niight, really.

TA: what do you want?

CG: UGH. OKAY.

CG: I NEED YOUR SHITTY HACKING SKILLS.

TA: and what would you need my 2hiitty hacking 2kiill2 for, ii wonder?

CG: WHY THE FUCK DO YOU NEED TO KNOW, ASSHOLE?

TA: because ii 2triive to make your liife as diifficult as possiible, of cour2e.

TA: al2o

TA: becau2e beliieve iit or not, even ii requiire 2ome 2ort of directiion two complete a ta2k.

TA: ii can’t help you iif you don’t tell me what you need help wiith, dumba22.

TA: but iif you don’t want two tell me, feel free two fiind your2elf another 2hiitty hacker

TA: ii’m 2ure there are plenty

TA: although ii don’t know iif any of them are goiing two be wiilliing two put up wiith your 2hiitty attiitude, a22hole.

twinArmageddons [TA] is idle 

CG: WAIT FUCK NO

CG: SOLLUX.

CG: SOLLUX GET YOUR IDLE ASSHOLE BACK HERE.

CG: SOLLUX ARE YOU ACTUALLY SERIOUS?

CG: I DON’T HAVE TIME TO PUT UP WITH YOUR BITCHY MOODS RIGHT NOW. I’M TRYING TO KEEP MYSELF ALIVE OVER HERE.

CG: I NEED YOU TO FIND A SHIP, SOLLUX.

CG: I NEED YOU TO FIND A SHIP SO MY STUPID MOIRAIL AND I DON’T GET CULLED.

CG: I’M ASKING YOU TO SAVE MY FUCKING LIFE, OKAY?

CG: AND GOD KNOWS I WOULDN’T EVER ASK A FAVOR FROM YOU IF I DIDN’T DESPERATELY NEED IT. THIS IS ME SWALLOWING MY ENORMOUS PRIDE HERE. AND IT IS DEFINITELY ENORMOUS. IT’S LIKE I’M CHOKING DOWN THE ENTIRE SUN, SO HOT AND ENORMOUS IS IT. THIS WORLD QUAKES AT THE SIZE OF MY PRIDE.

CG: FUUUUUCK, SOLLUX!

CG: ANSWER ME!

CG: …

CG: I’M SORRY, OKAY.

CG: THERE.

CG: YOU WIN, ARE YOU HAPPY? KARKAT THE ASSHOLE IS SORRY.

CG: NOW ANSWER ME. I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP, HERE.

TA: you are an a22hole, 2eriiously.

TA: but apology accepted.

TA: and of cour2e iill help you, you 2tupiid jerk.

TA: youre my friiend.

TA: for 2ome unfathomable rea2on.

TA: anyway, what kiind of 2hiip do you need?

CG: WE NEED AN EXPORT SHIP THAT’S HEADING TO EARTH WITHIN THE NEXT FEW PERIGEES.

TA: woah, youre comiing two earth!

TA: that2 awesome, dude!

TA: maybe we can fiinally meet! iill 2tart lookiing for a 2hip a2ap

CG: YEAH, WELL.

CG: EVERYTHING ON EARTH IS HORNLESS AND SOFT AND STUPID, SO. IT SEEMED LIKE THE BEST PLACE TO CHOOSE.

CG: AND GAMZEE WANTED TO SEE TAVROS, ANYWAY.

TA: ii get why you cant take a pa22enger 2hiip but

TA: ii do have to warn you, beiing an iillegal troll on earth ii2 not a2 fun a2 iit 2ound2, and iit doe2nt 2ound very fun at all to begiin wiith.

CG: AT THIS POINT, I’LL TAKE MY CHANCES. IT CAN’T BE WORSE THAN CERTAIN DEATH.

TA: faiir enough.

TA: okay, iive got 2hiit to do, but iill let you know what ii fiind out about the 2hiip2 a2 2oon a2 ii can.

TA: good luck, jerk. 2tay 2afe.

CG: THANKS, ASSHAT. YOU TOO.

twinArmageddons [TA]  ceased trolling  carcinoGeneticist [CG] 

You stretch back in your seat, crunching a piece of bacon between your teeth. That went well, you suppose. Not perfectly, but then, nothing with Sollux ever goes perfectly. At least the asshole agreed to help you—you’re not sure what you would do without him, honestly. Not that you care. At all. Not even a little bit.

“Damn, best friend,” a voice drawls behind you, and you jump—having another troll in your hive is definitely doing to take some adjusting to, fucking hell. “It smells all kindsa motherfuckin’ good down in this block.”

“Breakfast,” you say, flapping a hand behind you. You hear Gamzee’s footsteps cross the block, and then he nuzzles his face against your hand. His hair is damp and freshly-washed, and the waxy texture beneath your fingers tells you he’s already painted up for the night. You pap him gently, humming. “Eat something. I’m just trolling our asshole friends about our plans.”

“Oh, yeah?” He presses a soft kiss to your palm, then slips around you to grab a plate, scooping eggs and bacon onto it. “What’d they up and say?”

“Mm, Sollux said he’d look for a ship. I was just getting ready to talk to John. Have you told Tavros anything yet?”

He takes a seat across from you, shaking his head and digging into his eggs. “Nuh-uh. Figure there’s no point in gettin’ a motherfucker’s hopes up so soon—I’ll tell him once we’ve done made it there.”

“That’s a surprisingly good plan,” you say, pointing your fork at him, “but don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s disgusting. You disgust me.”

He grins at you through a mouthful of egg. Cheeky fucking shit.

“So—” He swallows obediently before continuing, though it does little to ease your chagrin. “After you get your talk on with that human motherfucker, what’s the plan for the night?”

“Mm, I didn’t really have one.” You prop your face in your hands, watching him eat with a sense of primal satisfaction. Fuck yeah, you can take care of your moirail. Make sure he’s clean and safe and well-fed. That’s one thing you can goddamn do right. “We can take down those awnings, and then I thought we might just hang out here. I’ll need to go to the shop sometime, but it can wait until later.”

Gamzee makes a sound of assent, though it’s muffled by the multiple slices of bacon he’s attempting to cram down his throat all at once. You roll your eyes and slide him a glass of water, which he chugs quickly. “Sounds like a motherfuckin’ swell plan, bro,” he says. “I—”

He cuts himself off when he hears the heavy stomp of your lusus’ feet—he’s ridiculously nervous around the crabshitter, and you think it might be adorable, if it weren’t so fucking sad. Your lusus growls at you as he enters the kitchen, sniffing the air, and you hiss petulantly back at him. Jerk. You didn’t miss his nagging while you were gone, that’s for sure.

“Hey there, mirthful motherfucker. Good evening,” Gamzee greets your lusus, leaning forward in his chair and beaming up at him, practically squirming as he tips his head back, all _not a threat_ and _friendly_ and _please don’t eat me_. It’s far too earnest, even for him. You guess he’s trying to win your lusus’ favor, the way he couldn’t ever win the old goat’s.

Well, shit.

That hurts to think about.

“There are roe cubes in the fridge,” you say, studying your own glass of water intently. If you don’t pay attention to something else, you think you might just have pile your pitiful goddamned moirail right this second. “He likes those.”

“Woah, shit, really?” Gamzee jumps up, and his chair topples over with a loud clatter. Your lusus bristles his spines, clicking his pincers irritably. Gamzee practically falls over himself apologizing, quickly righting the chair and diving for the thermal hull. “Sorry, sorry, I’m fucking sorry, motherfucker, here—”

He yanks the bag of roe cubes out, quickly tearing it open and flinging a cube at your lusus in his haste. Luckily, your lusus is used to being pelted with all kinds of things, and he snaps the cube right out of the air with a pincer and stuffs it into his greedy maw before screeching for more and scuttling towards Gamzee. You snort at the look on your moirail’s face—it’s caught somewhere between delight and terror as he scrambles up onto a counter to avoid your lusus’ snapping teeth. He tosses another roe cube, and your lusus devours it within seconds.

“Don’t let him push you around,” you chide Gamzee, finishing off your food and moving to rinse your plate as your lusus screams his stupid head off for _more cubes right now, motherfuckers._ “You’ll teach him bad manners.” Not, of course, that he ever had _good_ ones.

“Uh—so what should I all up and—” He yelps as your lusus snaps a pincer at him, clutching the bag of roe cubes to his chest. “Shit, no, I’m sorry, motherfucker—Karkat said no—”

“Yeah, Karkat did,” you say, deciding to rescue your poor palemate before he works himself into a strop or drops the roe cubes all over the crabshitter’s head. You stand and plant your shoulder against your lusus’ side, pushing him away from the counter and growling, “Fuck off already, asshole. You’ll get your roe cubes when I _say you get your goddamned roe cubes!”_

Your lusus shrieks at you, but he skitters back to the corner, snapping his pincers. You reach up, offering your hand to Gamzee. “C’mon, dumbass, get down from there before you break your neck. He’s not gonna do anything. You just have to be firm with him.”

Gamzee slips his hand into yours, for all you know it’s unnecessary, and hops off of the counter. He still eyes your lusus warily, but there’s a gleam in his eyes as he grins at you. “Oh, yeah? Must be another thing you got from him, huh, best friend?”

It takes you a second to understand that. A second, and then you’re whapping him (gently, as gently as you know how to whap anyone) with the flat of your palm and howling obscenities because now you’re _blushing goddamn him._ Who gave him the fucking _right_ to be so snarky and teasing and fuck now you’re thinking about it, yep, there you go, thinking about him being firm with you, thinking about _piling,_ and holy shit you just piled _twice_ hardly a day ago, you are the filthiest troll on Alternia, it’s you, you are the _worst—_

“Shoosh, shoosh, motherfucker,” Gamzee says, giggling and papping your burning face. “Just kiddin’ with you, ‘s alright. Don’t go getting yourself worked up, now, or I might have to help you settle, hm? Not that I’d mind that at all, of course. There’s a mirthful job if ever there was one.”

And then he has the gall to _wink_ at you.

You suck in a deep breath, fully prepared to lash him out for being such an _obscenely romantic pale sap, holy fuck—_ before you can, though, your lusus rattles his spines impatiently and ruins the fucking moment because of course he does. Gamzee glances over at him, shifting his weight nervously, and you growl and reach up to wrap him in a tight hug, instead. Your moirail. Fucking—yours. Pathetic.

You can’t believe you have to deal with this for the next quarter-sweep.

You can believe you _get_ to deal with this for the next quarter-sweep.

Gamzee’s arms wind around your back, hugging you close, and you nip at the side of his neck—pale for him you may be, but he’s still a little shithead, sometimes, and you know he knows it. “Oh, just give him another roe cube, already,” you grumble against his skin. “Last one. I don’t need him making himself sick. Do you know how hard it is to clean crabshitter vomit out of the carpet? Me neither, because I’ve never actually _succeeded—_ there are still stains in the rumpusblock, it’s fucking disgusting—”

You hear the bag rustle, and then a snap as your lusus chows down on yet another roe cube. Gamzee shuffles backwards, with you still clinging to him like the leech you are, and tucks the bag into the thermal hull again. Your lusus sighs. Then you hear him moving, hear the soft rasp of his carapace across the floor. He rests a heavy pincer against your shoulder, and you peek out at him.

He’s watching you both, his head tilted. He has his other pincer on the top of Gamzee’s head, and Gamzee looks absolutely fucking starstruck. His jaw is loose, his head tipped back, eyes big and wide. Your lusus smooths down the hair behind Gamzee’s horns, chittering softly. “He says thank you,” you translate for your lusus, though you doubt that’s anything close to what he actually means. Fuck if you know what your lusus is thinking half the time. “He thinks you’re a good wiggler. A really good wiggler.”

“Oh,” Gamzee says, his voice soft and quiet. You swear you see the gloss of tears across his eyes. Then there’s a brilliant grin spreading across his face, all delight and giddiness and ridiculously sharp teeth. He reaches up and hugs your lusus’ pincer to him, practically glowing. Good _lord,_ you are so deeply fucking in love with this dumbass. “Thanks, motherfucker! Thanks a fuckin’ bunch—you’re a great lusus, too. The best!”

You lusus sighs at Gamzee, and then proceeds shove him away and thump him between the horns. Ah, well. You win some, you lose some. Either way, Gamzee looks blissfully happy, his eyes shining and that stupid, giddy smile plastered across his face. You shoot your lusus a begrudgingly grateful look as he stalks out of the kitchen, and Gamzee scoops you up as soon as he’s gone, whooping with joy.

“Did you see that, best friend?” he exclaims, squeezing you so tightly you swear your ribs creak. Sometimes (most times) you forget he’s highblood-strong, and then he goes and gives you a hearty reminder. You thump his shoulder, wheezing, until his grip loosens some. “Did you motherfucking see? He likes me, I think he really motherfucking likes me!”

“Of course he likes you.” You scowl up at him, trying your best to ignore how warm and despicably gooey it makes you feel inside, seeing him so happy. “I told you—any lusus would be lucky to have you, panrot. You’re a good wiggler. Your lusus was just fucking ungrateful.”

Gamzee buries his face against your neck, giggling joyfully, but you can still feel the damp touch of his tears against your skin. You tangle a hand in his hair and lean your head against his, humming sympathetically. “Shh. Shh, Gamzee, it’s okay. It’s okay, you pitiful wreck. Why are you crying, huh? You did good. You _are_ good.” You press a soft kiss to the tip of one ear. “It’s alright.”

“Better than alright, best friend,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice. God, you love the sound of it. “Better than it’s been in a long, long motherfuckin’ time. Thank you. _Thank you.”_

You wrap your arms around his neck and hold him tightly, hiding your smile against his hair. “Yeah, whatever, you giant grub,” you mumble, squeezing him against you. Then, more quietly, you add, “You’re welcome.”

Gamzee curls his fingers into your shirt and just holds you, swaying gently in place. There’s a low, soft hum in his throat—that aimless, wandering tune you can’t ever follow. The notes of it trickle through your mind like water. You run your fingers through his hair, easing out the tangles from his ablutions and pressing soft kisses to his face. You taste greasepaint and salt and _home,_ and for a moment, you’re sure that everything is going to be okay.

When Gamzee finally sets you back down, you feel heavy and slow and calm, although what you’ve just done could hardly be considered piling. You take his hand and tug him along to the rumpusblock, curling up on the couch with him. He rests his head in your lap, tracing his fingers across the curves of the sign on your shirt, and you pet him absently as you pull out your phone. You would more than love to just cuddle here for the next few hours, but there _are_ things you need to arrange. You’ve still got trolling to do, after all.

carcinoGeneticist [CG]  began trolling  ectoBiologist [EB] 

CG: HEY EGBERT.

CG: I NEED YOUR ATTENTION.

CG: RIGHT NOW.

CG: GIVE IT TO ME.

EB: hi karkat!

EB: here is my attention!

EB: how have you been? :)

CG: MY WORTHLESS EXISTENCE ON THIS GRUBFUCKED EXCUSE OF A PLANET HAS BEEN SUBPAR, AS PER FUCKING USUAL. TALKING TO YOU HAS MADE IT SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE, AND YET, ALSO AS PER USUAL, I FIND MYSELF REACHING OUT TO YOU IN AN ACT THAT IS CLEARLY MASOCHISTIC AND FUELED BY MY PERPETUAL SELF-LOATHING.

EB: aw! it’s nice to talk to you too, buddy.

EB: what have you been up to—besides the self-loathing and the subpar existing?

CG: SLAUGHTERING DEFENSELESS ANIMALS, AVOIDING THE DEATHRAYS OF THE SUN AND TRYING TO STAY ALIVE, MOSTLY.

EB: well, that doesn’t sound like any fun :(

CG: IT’S NOT. WHAT THE FUCK MADE YOU THINK IT WOULD BE. WHAT PART OF “SUBPAR EXISTENCE” DIDN’T MAKE IT THROUGH YOUR THICK FUCKING SKULL, EGBERT?

EB: ha ha, i guess you’ve got me there! my life has been way less subpar than yours, apparently, although i did have this super big algebra test today and it suuuucked!

EB: my dad took me out for ice cream after, though, so it’s okay. and my friends and i are gonna go see a movie tonight, too!

CG: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH OF A SHIT I GIVE?

EB: not a single one!

CG: NOT A SINGLE BULGESHITTING WORTHLESS ONE. YOUR STUPID EARTH HOBBIES COULD NOT CONCERN ME IN THE LEAST, AND I FIND YOUR TIRELESS DRIVEL TO BE AS HOPELESSLY PAINFUL AND DIFFICULT TO ENDURE AS BEING FUCKED UP THE NOOK WITH A CULLING FORK.

CG: BUT I NEED SOMETHING FROM YOU, SO ENDURE IT I WILL.

EB: woah, you need something from me? neat! what is it?

CG: I NEED TO LEARN YOUR DUMB HUMAN LANGUAGE.

EB: which one? because i only know english and a little bit of spanish and chinese.

CG: HOW MANY FUCKING LANGUAGES DO YOU NEED, SERIOUSLY.

EB: i guess only one? but then you can only talk to certain people, and that’s no fun! if you want to talk to as many people as possible, either english or chinese would be good, though, i think.

EB: but how come you need to do that? doesn’t trollian translate everything for you?

CG: I HAVE MY REASONS, FUCKHEAD.

CG: CEASE YOUR INCESSANT AND UNNECESSARY PRYING AND TEACH ME.

EB: oh boy—okay! do you want to start with english? i’m fluent in that one, so it might be easier.

CG: SURE, FINE, WHATEVER. JUST DO IT.

EB: right! only, i’m not sure how? if trollian translates my words automatically, i can’t really—show you anything english? is there a way to turn off your translator?

CG: DUH. WE’RE NOT COMPLETELY TECHNOLOGICALLY INEPT, DUMBASS.

CG: BUT THEN I WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND ANYTHING YOU SAY AT ALL, SO THAT WOULDN’T WORK, EITHER.

EB: erm—i can try to send you a link to a site for learning english specifically for alternians? it might be a better teacher than me.

CG: I ASSURE YOU, ALMOST ANYTHING WOULD BE A BETTER TEACHER THAN YOU, AND YET, FOR SOME UNFATHOMABLE REASON, YOU CONTINUE TO BE MY FIRST CHOICE.

EB: aww! that could almost be interpreted as a sign of affection, karkat, you'd better be careful! :p 

ectoBiologist [EB] sent a link at 21:17 

EB: there! that should help get you started on reading and writing english, at least. if you want to learn to speak it i’m not sure how to help. maybe they have something like schoolfeeding videos available?

EB: unless!

EB: unless you want to videochat each other? that would be fun! and i could help you work on pronunciation and stuff!

CG: WHY THE FUCK WOULD I EVER WANT TO SUBJECT MYSELF TO BOTH YOUR FACE AND YOUR VOICE? I CAN HARDLY STAND YOU WHEN YOU’RE NOTHING BUT WORDS ON A SCREEN. I CAN’T IMAGINE HOW MUCH WORSE YOU MUST BE IN REAL LIFE.

CG: BUT

CG: I’LL THINK ABOUT IT.

EB: sweet! i can’t wait! have fun learning, karkat.

CG: WHATEVER.

CG: THANKS. I GUESS.

carcinoGeneticist [CG]  ceased trolling  ectoBiologist [EB] 

You set your phone down on Gamzee’s chest, and he cracks an eye open to look sleepily at you. “All sorted, best friend?” he asks.

“Yeah.” You reach out, tracing your thumb softly along the line of his paint where it curves around his eyes. “John sent me a link that should help us start learning some stupid human language. You wanna start now?”

“Can’t never get your motherfucking learnin’ on too early,” Gamzee says, chirping merrily and squirming to sit up beside you. “Let’s see what you’ve got, bro.”

You hop off of the couch and grab your husktop from the kitchen table, then return and balance it in your lap so the both of you can see it. The link that John sent you directs you to a page filled with a jumble of Alternian words—you turn your husktop’s translator off, and it resolves itself into fewer Alternian words and a whole fuckton of gibberish. You’re already getting a headache, fuck.

“Okay. So this fucking shit—” You jab a claw at the gibberish signs on your screen. “—is English. It’s a human language, and one that John speaks. We’re gonna fucking learn it.”

Gamzee nods earnestly. “Yeah, motherfucker. Let’s get this shit _learned.”_

Somehow, the two of you end up spending most of the evening pouring over the website. You feel like a fucking wiggler, starting at the very basics like this—sketching out stupid, curving English symbols and then sounding them out. There are a few videos that remind you of schoolfeeding, for which you’re grateful, and you watch them with focused attention. Gamzee watches them with—well, with significantly less focus, but at least he’s trying. Maybe, if you’re lucky, the videos will teach you enough pronunciation that you won’t have to videochat John. Because of course you don’t actually _want_ to do that. Of course not. Stupid. Fucking stupid.

Fuck. That’s one of the first actual words you learn in English, and you mutter it under your breath every time you get frustrated. It helps, a little.

You finally break for lunch, closing your husktop and captchaloguing it with a groan. “Ridiculous,” you inform Gamzee, and then, with your newly-acquired vocabulary, you add, “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” he parrots back at you, the English word raspy and unfamiliar on his tongue. His eyes are bright and giddy with his discovery. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

You put your hand on his face and push until he flops back onto the couch, giggling, and then you stand and stretch yourself out. “What do you want for lunch?” you call over your shoulder, heading for the kitchen. “We’ve got a shitton of food, and you don’t like what we’ve got, the crabshitter can hunt something else up.”

As if on cue, the crabshitter skuttles his way into your kitchen, hissing and banging a pincer on the stovetop because _clearly_ you wanted his worthless input. Gamzee sits straight up, watching your lusus with rapt attention and big, round eyes. Ridiculous. Fucking ridiculous.

Breaks your fucking heart.

“Anything is fine with me, my main motherfucker,” he says, nodding so quickly you’re surprised his head doesn’t topple off of his scrawny neck. “Whatever you want to be making, I’ll be up for eating.” He stands up, inching his way carefully into the kitchen and smiling sheepishly at your lusus—he even gives him a shy little wave. Goddamnit. Why is your moirail so fucking _cute?_ It’s not _fair—_ makes you wanna pile him every single fucking night.

“Right—I’ll make some stew,” you say, rummaging around in the thermal hull and pulling out your ingredients. “Hopefully it’ll turn out better than the last one.”

“It’s hard to get worse than that, brother,” Gamzee offers, patting your shoulder comfortingly. You’re not quite sure whether you should be offended or not. “I could stand a pie, though—you mind if snag some of your sopor and tuck one in the stove?”

“Mm, go ahead. Tins are in the cabinet,” you say, waving a knife in the general direction of your tins, though it leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

Gamzee pulls out a pie tin and vanishes into your respiteblock—returns with a half-full tin of sopor and slips it into your oven, already licking thick, green slime off of his fangs. Your stomach does a slow roll, and you focus far harder than is necessary on the hoofbeast meat you’re cubing. Your lusus snatches bites off of your cutting board as you work, and you let him. God knows the last time he had a meal. It’s hard to tell when he’s getting too scrawny, with that stupid carapace in the way, but he’s kinda sunken around the eyes. He probably hasn’t eaten since you left, aside from the roe cubes. Dumbass crab. You toss a hunk of meat across the kitchen and he screeches, taking off after it.

(You don’t know what he’s going to do once you and Gamzee leave. You _do_ know he won’t take another wiggler—he’s as much a mutant as you are.)

(You try not to think about it too much.)

Once your stew is bubbling, you take a seat at the table again, propping your chin in your hand. “What do you wanna do after we take those awnings down?” you ask, watching Gamzee as he watches your lusus. He’s hardly torn his eyes away from him the entire time he’s been in the kitchen. Part of you wants to feel jealous (why should the _crab_ get so much of _your_ palemate’s attention?) but the other part of you understands the why of it and is bone-weary with sorrow for him. “I have some books, or we could play games, or watch a movie or something.”

“That all sounds mighty miraculous, brother,” Gamzee says, tracing the whorls in the wood of your table. “I'd like to get some time to watch last night's sermon, if it's all the same to you—it's the Grand Highblood himself talkin' about quadrants." He does an excited little wiggle. "Got his little blueblood palemate as a guest speaker and everything. Oughta be a good one. And then maybe we can watch one of your romcoms? How about _The One in Which the Auspistice Finds Herself  Caught Between a Pair of Vacillating Highbloods?_ ”

“Mm—that’s a good one,” you agree, satisfaction humming in your chest. You do love a good romcom. “Go watch your creepy cult sermon, then. I’ll call you when the food’s done.”

“You got it, best friend.” Gamzee hops to his feet, then sneaks his way gingerly past your lusus before bolting down the hallway. You pull up a book on your phone, scrolling through the pages as you wait for the stew and pie to finish (though when exactly a sopor pie is considered _finished_ is a fact that has ever alluded you, for which you are grateful). You shout down the hallway once you’ve filled two bowls with stew and set the pie out to cool, and Gamzee comes sneaking back around your lusus. Crabshitter snaps a pincer at him and he yelps out apologies, ducking behind you. What a pitiful excuse for a highblood, good _god._

You shove a bowl into his hands and he beams at you, leaning down to kiss the tip of your nose. “Thanks, motherfucker,” he says, and you huff at him. The two of you eat slowly, talking about your friends and your foes and your futures. There’s no rush—neither one of you has to leave. Neither one of you has to leave ever again.

It’s nice. Mildly terrifying in prospect, but nice.

Once you’ve finished your stew, Gamzee reaches for his pie, licking his teeth in anticipation. Your lusus growls warily, and you look away—you can’t look at him as you fail him, as you make the fucking _choice_ to fail him. You’re the worst moirail, it’s you. You’re both too scared of what Gamzee could be _without_ the sopor that you just—you just—

You stand up, clearing your throat. “Anyway. I’m—gonna go get started on those awnings. I’ll meet you out there.”

You bolt from the room before he answers you, herding your lusus in front of you (the crabshitter, you're coming to realize, will have no qualms about flipping his shit when Gamzee eats sopor, and that just makes you feel worse). Bursting out into the warm night air is a relief, and you breathe deeply for a moment, squeezing your eyes shut. Fuck sopor, seriously. Fuck _you_ for letting him eat sopor. Who the fuck is scared of their own moirail? And what’s worse, you let that fear control you—control _him._ If _you_ can’t trust him, how is he ever going to trust himself? It’s not healthy, it’s not fucking _romantic,_ it’s stupid and awful and horrible and you’re the biggest coward on the face on this nookchafing asshole murder-planet and—

Your lusus pinches your back with his pincer and you yelp, whipping around to scowl at him. “What the hell was that for, nookwad?” you demand, rubbing a hand over the sore spot on your skin. “Seriously, I don’t know how I put up with you, sometimes. The saint of patience, that’s me, alright—fuck you, help me up.”

You climb onto your lusus’ shoulders, and then onto the lowest roof of your hive. You tear savagely at your gaudy red awnings, trying to focus on the task at hand instead how much of a stupid fuck-up and worthless moirail you are. Each tattered awning floats its way to the ground after you tear it down, and you scramble higher and higher, using your windowsills as footholds to scale your hive. You’ve made it to the second floor by the time Gamzee slips outside, craning his neck to look up at you.

“Damn, bro—you sure are way up there, huh?” he asks, and you’d think he was worried, but there’s a sopor-heavy glaze across his eyes and a dopey smile on his face and you don’t think he can feel much of anything, right now. “You need a hand?”

“Yeah—go upstairs and cut that last fastening through the window,” you say, nodding at the tip of your highest awning. “Then we’ll be done.”

Gamzee ducks back inside, and you lean against the warm, dark walls of your hive and look out across your hivecluster. The lawnrings around you are quiet and empty—you suppose you must have made all of your neighbors nervous, bringing home a mini-subjugglator. (Mini. Fuck. You can’t even stand to think about how big he’s going to be once he’s fully-grown. Shit’s not fucking _fair.)_

There is one lawnring, however, that’s not empty. A large cholerbear lusus crouches at the edge of the ring—it must be at least six feet at the shoulder, with broad shoulders and thick white fur. Its eyes are beady and rust-dark, and its paws are heavy and tipped with savage claws. It lifts its lip when it sees you, shows you its teeth. You sneer back at it.

“Whatcha makin’ faces for, best friend?” Gamzee asks, poking his head out of your window. He reaches over, slicing a claw through the thick rope that holds the last awning in place. It flutters down to your roof, and you scoop it up and fling it off your hive—very pointedly in the direction of that big asshole lusus.

“Nothing,” you say, pushing Gamzee’s head back inside and climbing in after him. “C’mon. Let’s go get the awnings inside and then we can relax. We don’t have anything else to worry about tonight, got it? We’re gonna have a _great_ fucking time, mark my words.”

“Got ‘em all marked up proper, best friend. Always.”

Gamzee beams at you, and you know he doesn’t remember much, but he means what he says—you are well and truly marked. You reach out to brush his hair back. Marked, that’s you. Marked, whether you deserve it or not, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.


	8. (it's not)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter track: "floating/sinking" by peter broderick
> 
> warnings: violence, blood, major injury, mild gore, character death

The next three weeks pass in a _fantastic_ motherfuckin’ blur. Each evening you wake curled up with your brother in his ‘coon, and each morning you fall asleep there. Your stomach’s always full, you’re always kept clean and neat under your best friend’s fussing, you’ve got sopor aplenty, a lusus what you see every day, and you’re even _learning._ Sure, you ain’t learning quick, but you’re still learning. You know a solid smattering of English words, now— _fuck_ and _motherfuck_ and _shit_ and _damn,_ mostly, which are your brother’s favorites. You know how to write all those curvy letters, too, and know the sounds they make—you can even write your own name! Shit’s motherfuckin’ cool.

You get a shitton of time to talk to your friends, too. You can’t hardly wait to tell Tavros you’re heading to him, but wait you do. It won’t do to crush his sweet little hopes if something goes wrong—not that it will, of course. Your best friend is confident about _that._ You get your talk on with Sollux and John, too, in the meantime. Sollux gripes and groans at you, most of the time, and you don’t quite understand his jokes or his references, but you still feel the need to get your grateful on at him for helping you and Karkat find a ship.

And he has! Found you a ship, that is. He’s found you several, actually. There’s one what he says is leaving in two nights—but that’s far too soon, your Karkat says. You don’t have all your stuff what you need purchased yet, and he can’t purchase it all at once for fear of being suspicious. There’s another ship leaving in a few weeks (still too soon, your brother insists), and yet another leaving in two perigees. Brother says that’s the one you want, and you ain’t got a single argument to make.

The John motherfucker is sweeter to you than Sollux, for all you don’t know him as well. He’s always been more Karkat’s friend than yours, but you don’t mind. Who _wouldn’t_ want to be friends with your little spitfire, after all? Still, though he doesn’t know you well, John listens to your rambling and laughs at your jokes and even jokes back sometimes and you warm up to him right quick. Humans are pretty neat, you think—leastways their wigglers are. You ain’t never met one of their adults, and you gotta admit, you’re pretty nervous for that. Adults are spooky shit. You can't quite get comfy with the idea of sharing a planet with them.

 It’s heading onto your fourth week with Karkat when he finally, grumbling and grouching (and nervous, you can tell), sets up a videochat with John. He makes a big fuss, putting on his cleanest clothes, polishing his horns (and yours) and trimming his claws (and yours) and making sure your facepaint is smooth and neat. He herds you into the frame before he starts the call, and you offer the camera your biggest, brightest grin. Wanna make a good first impression on this helpful human motherfucker, at the very least.

And _boy,_ does this helpful human motherfucker look _weird._ He’s got brown skin instead of gray, and the yellows of his eyes are white and he ain’t got no _horns._ You knew he’d look alien, but still—seein’ it is motherfuckin’ _hilarious._ “Hi, motherfucker!” you greet him as cheerfully as you can. “You’re a weeeird alien.” Ha! Even got your English words working the right way in your mouth, you think. Beside you, Karkat buries his face in his hands and groans like you’ve done killed him.

And then, the _funniest_ thing—John laughs, and the insides of his mouth are soft and pale and his teeth are white and round and small, ‘cept the two front-most ones, which are a little bigger. “That I am,” he agrees, grinning at you, his skin all crinkled up around his eyes. His irises are all colored-in already, bright blue, though you know on Karkat’s word that his blood runs redder than rust. “You must be Gamzee—it’s nice to finally meet you face-to-face! I’m John.”

You understand most of his words, you’re pleased to realize, though a few of them still slither past you all slippery-like. Got enough make reason and response to, though, for sure enough. “John,” you repeat back at him, well fucking pleased. You point at Karkat. “And Karkat!”

“And Karkat,” John agrees, leaning forward and propping his face in his hands. “Hiiii, Karkaaaat—”

Karkat’s head whips up and he growls at the camera, all soft and annoyed. John’s eyes widen a minute—surprised by the noise, you think, and you get your wonder on about _that_ (what noises do humans all motherfuckin’ communicate with, besides their funny little words?)—before he grins even _wider._ Karkat opens his mouth to speak, but he can’t quite get his rant on the way you know he wants to, his English words bein’ so sparse and all. “Fuck,” he says, instead, offering John his best scowl. “Fuck you, Egbert.”

John laughs again, his eyes shining. “That’s Karkat, alright—it’s nice to see you, man. How've you been?”

Karkat jabs a claw at him, his scowl morphing into a concentrated little frown. “Again. Slower.”

“Oh—” John repeats his question, his words slower and pronunciation sharper. He’s got a funny little accent, not like the troll did on those schoolfeeding videos. You lean against Karkat and you listen to the rhythm of his funny foreign words as they crash over you, humming happily.

“Bad. Like shit,” Karkat answers John, once gets his understand on of the question. He pauses, then adds, “You. How are you?”

You know he ain’t askin’ to be real chivalrous, your brother, but askin’ because those are the words he’s getting his practice on of. John still brightens right up when he asks, though, and his voice is pleasant and cheerful against your ears as he answers. “I’ve been really good, actually—summer just started a couple of weeks ago, so school’s gonna be out soon, which is awesome! I’m gonna go visit one of my friends down in Houston next month, too, which I'm really excited about.”

 _You_ certainly don’t understand most of the words, and you know for goddamn certain Karkat don’t, either, but he still nods like he does—doesn’t wanna look stupid, you figure. You really oughta get that through his head, sometime, that he’s not stupid just because he doesn’t understand somethin’. How’s he supposed to, when he’s just started learning, after all? “Good,” Karkat says, his voice brisk. “Teach us, Egbert.”

John sits back in his chair, wrapping himself up in a soft blue blanket. “Okay,” he says, a determined little set to his jaw. “Teaching, right. So—what words do you know already? Let’s start with that.”

The three of you chat for a solid hour, trading English words back and forth. You still gotta type your questions sometimes, so Trollian can translate John’s answers for you, when they get to be too complicated. You learn quite a bit, you think, though your gaze keeps drifting off behind John. His respiteblock (leastways that what you assume it is) is weird as _shit_. There isn’t a ‘coon, and the windows are untinted and there’s white sunlight streaming through. You kinda zone out a couple times, admiring the way the colors look so _different_ in that pale sunlight. Karkat grouches at you, but after a while he gives you that fond little sigh what means he’s given up trying to get you to focus.

“John,” he says, instead, tapping a finger on his husktop screen. He points at the long, flat blue cushion in the back of John’s room. “What?”

John squints his funny little eyes up, glancing behind him. “What’s that? Oh! That’s my bed. It’s like your, uh, ‘coons, right?”

“Bed,” Karkat repeats, rolling the word around in his mouth. It comes out rougher and rattlier than how John says it, but it’s still a fine-ass imitation, if you do say so yourself. “Yes. What—what?” he asks again, narrowing his eyes.

“What—uh? We sleep in it,” John tries, looking all sorts of uncertain. “Is that what you want to know?”

Karkat shakes his head, growling to himself. He glances around, then grabs one of your half-empty Faygo bottles (blueberry flavored, mmm), holding it up and tapping it. “What?” he demands again.

John leans forward, squinting at it. “Is that—is that Faygo? You guys have Faygo too?”

Karkat groans, then turns to you and tugs on your sleeve. “Give me one of your clubs, asshat—the blue one,” he says, Alternian words flowing much more smoothly from his tongue.

“You wish is my command, bro,” you say, slipping right back into Alternian with him. Feels all kinds of natural. You glance up, peering through your strife specibus and trying to find your blue club. All _kindsa_ colors up there, though, seriously. You give up after a few seconds, letting all your clubs crash down around you and scooping the blue one up off the floor. “Here you go, best friend.”

Karkat huffs at you for makin’ a mess of his floor but takes the club, tapping one claw rapidly against the blue stripe around the top. _“What?”_ he demands again in English. That one little word sure is gettin’ popular with the three of you.

“What is—?” John pauses a moment, frowning. There’s a little squiggly line of concentration between his brows. “Do you—the color?” His eyes brighten a little with understanding, then, and he grins. “The color! That’s blue, Karkat. Blue.”

“Blue,” Karkat says, turning to you and offering you your club. “Blue, Gamzee.”

“Blue,” you agree, patting your club affectionately. You scoop up another club, your green one, showing it to John. “What, motherfucker?”

“Green,” John tells you, still grinning—looks delighted with himself, having figured out what Karkat wanted without having to type it out. You yourself are pretty damn delighted, too—colors are motherfuckin’ _awesome,_ and you’re glad to know any name for them. You pay a little more attention, after that, quizzing John about his colors until he tells at you, “Guys, I hate to cut this awesome conversation short, but it’s almost dinnertime here. Dad’ll come drag me downstairs if I’m not there soon.”

He has to type it out for you before the two of you understand, but once you do, you have to feel a little nervous for him. You know human adults raise their own wigglers, and you wouldn’t want him to get dragged around by an angry adult. Shit’s dangerous. So you say your goodbyes right quick, and then Karkat ends the call, slumping back against the couch. Turns his face into a pillow and screams his frustrations out, then flops over into your lap.

“That went pretty motherfuckin’ well,” you say, petting a hand absently over his wiry hair as he nuzzles into your lap. “John’s a cool motherfucker, yeah?”

“John’s an asshole,” Karkat mutters, though there’s no heat in his voice. In fact, you think he sounds pretty satisfied. “He’s so fucking naïve and arrogant and _friendly,_ it pisses me off. But—yeah. I guess that went as well as could be expected, when you combine the universe’s dumbest human, its most panrotted fearmonger, and a fucking mutant freak.”

“That’s the spirit, bro,” you say, cheerful as you can. “Now, how about we go do somethin’ fun? My head hurts from all those motherfuckin’ human words.”

And off you go, to do somethin’ fun. You do lotsa of fun stuff, when you’re with Karkat. You watch movies and play games and hunt and cuddle and paint and _pile,_ holy shit, do you _pile._ Pile him near about every night, and it never does get old. You fucking _love_ jammin’ with your best friend, listening and learning and trading thoughts ‘till you both fall asleep curled up on a pile of old clothes, romcoms, and beanbags.

It’s the night after your chat with John that your best friend decides to go to the shops for some more of the shit you’ll need for your interstellar travels.

It is that very same night that your life with him here falls the fuck apart.

“I’ll be back by the time the green moon sets, okay?” he says, standing in front of the door, all dressed up for his trip. He’s got his thin black jacket on, sign curled all nice and neat on his shoulder, empty rucksack settled on his back and his sylladex good and cleared out, save for his strife specibus. “There’s food in the fridge if you get hungry, and the crabshitter’s gonna stay here with you. Try to stay inside and don’t draw any attention to yourself, got it?”

“Got it,” you say, nodding at him. Giggle at the way it makes him bob up and down in your vision, and he scowls at you.

“I’m serious, Gamzee. If I come back and anything has happened, I fucking swear—”

“Aw, nothing’s gonna happen, best friend, ‘s alright.” You lean down and nuzzle your nose against his, and he huffs out a short little breath at you but doesn’t move away. “I’ll take good care of hive and home, I promise. You go on, now. Go do what needs to be done and come back safe to me, little diamond.”

He hums at you, considering, and then presses a soft kiss to your chin, to the scent gland beneath your jaw. “Yeah, okay. Stay put, fucker. I’ll see you in the morning.”

You offer him your fingers, half a diamond, and he presses the tips of his to yours to complete it. “Pale for you,” you tell him, ‘cause you know how he likes that sappy romantic shit (and you very much like givin’ it to him, you will acknowledge).

“Pale for you too, dumbass.”

And then he’s gone. Slips out the hive and into the dim dusk, and you stare after him until he’s gone. His lusus stands beside you, clicking his teeth nervously, and you reach up and tentatively place a hand on his shoulder. “It‘s okay,” you tell him, trying to make your voice as confident as you can. “Brave motherfucker, our Karkat. He’ll be back soon, so don’t you get to worryin’.”

Lusus leans against your hand, letting out one of those little sighs what means he agrees—or leastways means he doesn’t _disagree._ Then he scuttles off again, chittering aimlessly to himself, and you drift towards the rumpusblock. It’s—weird, being here without your best friend. The hive is quiet and dark and lonely in a way it’s never been before. Better than your hive, still, because at least here you have the comforting noises of a lusus movin’ around in the background to keep you company.

You do miss the sound of the sea, though.

You make yourself comfortable, grab a bottle of Faygo and sip at it as you read through the Messiahs’ Book, gettin’ your memorize on of holy scripture. Once you’ve done that, you gather up one of your old black shirts and a handful of the paints you brought with you, and you get to work makin’ some fine-ass art. Lather the paints on thick across the shirt, enjoy the way it seeps slow through the fabric.

It doesn’t show up bright, not unless you hold it up to the light just the right way. You like your bright colors well enough, ‘course you do (what clown don’t?), but there’s something about subtlety that catches your eye, too. You say your devotional prayers over your finished painting, hope it does please your Messiahs, and then gather up your supplies and put them away all neat so Karkat won’t be salty at you. Hang the shirt up on the wall so you can admire it, then head back to the rumpusblock. Practice juggling your clubs awhile. You’ve been getting a little rusty with your practices, what with you bein’ spoiled by Karkat and all, but you ain’t lost the skill.

Once you’re done juggling, you practice a few of the subjugglator fighting moves you’ve seen on your Church schoolfeed—but they don’t come natural to you. Feel stiff and uneasy, and you are sleepy and warm and safe and not much for fighting. You give that up and troll your friends a bit, then eat a meal with the lusus. You feed him little scraps of meat, and he snaps them up greedily and shrieks at you for more. You motherfucking oblige.  Eat sopor while he’s not looking—he doesn’t like it when you eat that, you had discovered some weeks ago, when he’d bit you for diggin’ into a pie and you’d bawled your heart out in a corner, convinced he hated you, until Karkat had comforted you most kindly. Lusus didn’t bite you again, after that. Even cuddled up next to you on the couch that next morning, when you were watchin’ Church service.

The moons are just starting their descent when you hear a noise outside the hive, and you brighten up, hoping for your best friend’s return. You jump up to rush the door, but the lusus suddenly snags a pincer in your shirt, hauling you backwards. Shoot him a baffled look, but you don’t fight him—don’t wanna piss him off, don’t wanna do to him whatever the fuck you did to send your own lusus running. His eyes are narrowed, and he’s real still—not a single sound does he make. Then he pushes you behind him, snaps teeth at you real firm— _stay put._ Your raising may have been sporadic at best, but the reading of a lusus’ commands is hardwired up in your wiggler pan, and you stay put. He moves towards the door, steps real quiet, and pauses before it. Lifts his head, scenting the air. The spines on his back raise, needle-sharp points to ward off attack. Your stomach turns uneasily.

“Motherfucker?” you ask, your own voice quiet. He glances back at you. “Are you—”

The door to Karkat’s hive suddenly bursts inwards, slamming the lusus backwards. He crashes into the ground, laying his spikes flat quick so they don’t snap against the floor. An enormous creature plunges itself into the house, and you stand frozen stiff, jaw slack. Your comprehension dawns slowly, thoughts clawing their way through that thick sopor-haze across your pan. Oh shit. Oh fuck oh shit oh fuck Karkat’s gonna be so _mad—_

The creature—a lusus, it’s a lusus, that cholerbear monster from next door, the one with those mean rusty eyes, you realize in a rush—roars, and the sound crashes heavy and powerful against your eardrums and makes you gasp for breath. You stumble backwards, every little bit of your pan howling for you to _get away away away._ You are a purpleblood, most fearsome and holy of all trolls, but you are still only six sweeps old and you are _not prepared to motherfucking deal with this, holy shit—_

The cholerbear stalks towards you, its big head hung low, swinging back and forth as it smells at you. You try to make yourself small and non-threatening as possible, heart thundering in your chest. You are so dead. You are so dead, holy shit, you hope the Messiahs liked your painting because you are _meeting_ them tonight, fuck fuck fuck—

And then Karkat’s lusus kicks the door off of himself and bolts upright, making a noise you ain’t never heard him make before—it’s something kin to a scream, hard and sharp and vicious. The cholerbear whips its head around, its claws sinking into the floor, and before you have even a second to breathe, it lunges at Karkat’s lusus. The two of them crash together in an awful, horrible shriek of noise. The cholerbear tries to rake the claws of its four forelimbs across the crabshitter’s sides, but his carapace sends them skittering off like _nothing._ He gets a pincer up and slices at the cholerbear’s muzzle, leaving rusty streaks of blood across its fur as it bellows.

The two of them grapple together, a blur of white and rust and awful mutant red, and you are frozen still with terror. It’s all locked up inside of you, tying your limbs in place and slamming your heart up against the back of your sternum. You have to get rid of the fear. You have to, fuck, you have to let go of it, you have to _move—_

But you can’t. The sopor is there, a thick band around your thinkpan, heavy across one part in particular—that one part you _need,_ that one as lets you slam your fear out and away from yourself and into somebody (anybody) else. That one part you crave to have locked away as of ordinary, that one part that whispers death and destruction and _glory,_ that one part you _need now and cannot motherfucking reach—_

You let out a frustrated cry, reaching for your strife specibus instead. Your favored clubs, Red and Green, drop into your hands. They’re light, not true subjugating clubs, but they’ve not failed you yet—though you seldom use them for anything but hunting. How different can this be, right? You just gotta think of the cholerbear as prey, that’s all, just the prey what you and Karkat hunt every couple weeks—

You spring forward when the cholerbear has its back turned to you, busy fighting the crabshitter. Jump up onto the table and raise your club, bring it down with a solid _crack_ against the back of the lusus’ skull before you can even _think_ about the blow. It roars, its big paws stuttering midblow for a moment, and the crabshitter surges forward and buries his teeth in that motherfucker’s throat. Its roar turns into a wet, gurgling shriek of pain, and you feel a surge of victory—and then it slams a paw down across the crabshitter’s face. You hear a terrible _crunch_ and you cry out in fear for him, jumping forward and digging your claws into the cholerbear’s hide. Climb up, up, up, and then reach around and smash your club hard as you fuckin’ can across its muzzle—drop down before it can reach around and claw you in retribution most unkind, tuck and roll clumsy as you please.

The cholerbear whips around towards you, blood rushing through the thick fur across its neck, its snout all broken and twisted unright, and it lifts one heavy paw again. Its claws gleam in the moonlight, stained bright red, and then it hits you. Hits you harder than you’ve ever been hit before, god _damn._ You fly through the air, smash into the far wall. All your breath leaves you in a big _whoosh,_ bright pain flaring up through your back and shoulders. You slump to the ground, struggle to wheeze a breath into sore lungs, and look up just in time to see the cholerbear lunging for you.

You scramble to move out of the way, though your limbs feel slow and heavy and uncooperative. Barely miss the cholerbear’s claws as they slash through the wall where your motherfuckin’ torso just was—you dive for the table, curling up under it and fumbling to draw another pair of clubs from your specibus. Red and Green dropped from your fingers when you hit the wall, and the cholerbear crushes Red beneath its paw as it turns to face you again. You cry out in affront—had those clubs since you were a motherfucking two-sweeper, _fuck._

Blue and Purple drop into your hands, next. A high, nervous chitter rattles in your thorax, and you want to be _angry,_ you want to growl and snarl and roar, but it will not come. You are nothing but fear, raw and pure and _trapped._ Your fingers tremble around your clubs. The lusus rears up on its back legs, hunched over because it’s goddamn taller than the ceiling lets it be, and slams its frontmost paws down on the edge of the table. You duck back, and the table flips over—cholerbear hooks its claws around it the flings it to the side. It shatters into broken pieces and splintered parts, and you stagger backwards.

The cholerbear drops back onto all six feet and lumbers towards you. A great, low growl rumbles in its throat. You hold Blue up, trying to ward it off, but it lashes out and swats the club from your hand like a goddamn fly. One of its claws catches your wrist in the blow, slices it open like _nothin’_ , and you cry out, tucking your arm back against you as you bleed. It looms over you—a great, terrible wall of white fur and rotten breath and warm blood.

For a moment, you know the face of death—and then it is turned from you.

You hear a great, agonized shriek, and then you see Karkat’s lusus rearing up behind the cholerbear. He pounces on it, wraps his pincers around and gets a grip on the cholerbear’s belly fur, clinging on. He sets his teeth in the back of the cholerbear’s neck and you hear him _tear—_ hear the awful, wet ripping of muscle and tendon. The scent of blood floods the air, hot and thick, and the cholerbear gives a terrible scream of pain, staggering back. It curls two paws behind itself to sink claws into the crabshitter’s spine, twists its head and snaps its teeth and you hear the awful _crack_ of carapace and then you hear the crabshitter scream, too.

You scream with him, your fear tearing you up inside, and then you seize on the distraction and jump up on the counter, pull Purple back and send it crashing forward, right into the side of the cholerbear’s head with all the strength you ain’t never had to use. This time you hear something deep _crack,_ and the cholerbear twitches for a moment—takes in a big, shuddering breath and starts slumping to the side. It stumbles around on its paws, groaning low in its chest. Crabshitter slides off of its back and onto the ground, and you race to his side before the cholerbear even hits the floor. He shrieks at you, and as soon as you reach him he grabs you and pulls you in tight against his chest. Rolls over so he’s on top of you, a shell between you and the outside world. You are soaked in his blood.

For a long moment, the world is a buzz and a blur. You can’t see anything but the crabshitter’s white carapace, stained slick with rust blood and worse—with that bright, vivid red you know belongs to the beasts of the world, to him and to your Karkat. You can hear his breathing, rattling and wet, and hear the great fast drum of his heartbeat. He’s heavy. Heavy and limp and making tired, hurting sounds above your head.

The cholerbear, though. The cholerbear doesn’t make any more sounds.

You close your eyes. Breathe. Your fear rots inside of you. Festers. You dig your claws into the floor and drag yourself out from under the crabshitter, and he lets you. Too weak to hold you to himself any longer. The floor around you is dark, the lusii’s blood spreading in gleaming pools. The cholerbear doesn’t move to hurt either one of you again, so you twist your head around and have eyes only for the lusus who matters.

The crabshitter is sprawled out on his belly, one pincer laid out on the ground in your direction. His one remaining eye watches you, sharp and bright, through the mauled mask of his face. There are three great gouges there, where the cholerbear’s claws laid him open, and awful bright red seeps down his carapace and falls to the ground in sluggish drops. Several of the spikes on his back are snapped off, but they did their goddamn duty and kept the cholerbear from breaking shell or spine. The real wound is at the side of his neck, right near the front, where his carapace is thinner—cholerbear’s teeth tore right through him in that final deathsnap. You can see his veins and arteries all torn up, pumping his lifeblood from him in thick waves.

And still—still, he watches you. He never does leave you.

Impossible, to think that another troll’s lusus could love you better than your own, and that’s the tragedy of it. You have lost the lusus you never had, and you have lost him twice.

You shift towards the crabshitter again. Get your knees under his chin so he can rest his heavy head in your lap. His blood spills over your knees, soaks your pants to your skin. You reach out and press palms to his throat, try numbly to stem the flow. It coats your hand, bright and hot. Makes your stomach roll.

You’re whispering, you realize. Whispering real hoarse, but soft and soothing, like you do with Karkat when he gets real upset. “It’s okay,” you say. Lean your head down and rest it against his. “It’s okay, it’s okay, shh. You’re gonna be okay, fuck. Karkat’ll be home soon, he’ll fix you up, good as motherfuckin’ new. You just gotta hold on until then, that’s all. Just hold on until then, until your wiggler gets back.”

He makes a low, weary noise. His breath rattles on a sigh.

“You saved me,” you tell at him, because it’s suddenly urgent that he knows—that he knows he didn’t get himself hurt for nothing, that he knows you are so motherfucking grateful. “Saved my life, and it wasn’t even your duty, not for me as who isn’t your own. Motherfucking—noble, that shit. Your Karkat’s gonna be so proud, once he gets done being pissed all to hell at us.” You laugh, but the sound is wet and soft and not mirthful at-fucking-all. “You know how salty he gets, don’t you? Gets it from you, I bet. Must get that martyr shit from you, too. So you gotta—you gotta stick around for him. Can’t be up and abandoning him, now. Who the fuck else is he gonna learn from?”

He leans his head so the crest of it touches your stomach, and you press harder on his throat to try and keep his blood inside of him. He groans and clicks at you but can’t do much else, his whole big body trembling with his hurt.

“He loves you, your Karkat,” you tell him. Close your eyes and take a deep, shuddering breath. “Loves you truly and fiercely, just as you’ve loved him. If you leave now it’ll break his goddamned heart. And I can’t—I can’t be letting you do that.”

You expect a sigh of agreement from him, but his breathing’s shallow and getting shallower, and you—you understand. Your brother’s heart will be broken today, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it. You choke back a high, awful keen as your own grief tries to shred itself through you. Not now. Not now, while your brother’s lusus dies in your arms.

You press your lips to the top of his head and speak what comfort you can, instead. “I’ll pray the Carnival waits for you. I hope you get your view on of all—all the colors there ever were, in all the worlds there ever will be. Hope there’s food and drink aplenty, warm shelter and safe nights and mirthful hearts. I’ll take care of your Karkat for you, so you don’t worry about him any longer. You did your job. Raised him right and safe. You oughta be proud—he’s made for greatness, your wiggler. He’ll hurt for you, but he’ll be okay. I promise I’ll make it so.”

His chest lifts. Drops down again on a shuddering breath. It does not lift again.

“And me, too,” you whisper, your eyes stinging. “Me too, big brother. I’ll make you proud. Rest, now. Rest well, and with Messiahs’ many blessings.”

Then you close your eyes, and you pray. You pray long and hard, claw through your mind for scriptures and praises with which to plead your Messiahs for his safe passage, for his welcome into the Dark Carnival—or leastways into whatever afterlife a lusus may have. You imagine their wigglers are there, in that afterlife, small and safe. You imagine him up there, a tiny Karkat bundled in his arms, smiling with all his nubby teeth. Imagine they’ll both be safe and happy and together forever, and you pour your aching _want_ for that into each and every prayer you send up.

The thing that jerks you out of your prayers (the only thing that _could)_ is the sound of steps brushing against the grass outside. They’re slow at first, weary little marching steps you know well—but they break into a run as soon as they get near, as soon as your little brother lays eyes on the ruin of his home. You hear his gasping breaths as he stops in the doorway. Hear the click of his throat as he swallows and does not speak.

You open your eyes. Glance up at him. There’s an awful understanding in his gaze as he crosses over to you, stepping heedlessly across pools of sticky, bright blood. You see his little chest rise and fall, too quick and too uneven. He kneels beside you in his lusus’ blood. Reaches out and sets a hand on that noble, bleeding head. The two of you do not speak. There is no comfort for this. You only lean together, and you close your eyes and breathe your prayers into his hair as he huddles down close to his lusus.

He grieves. You grieve with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so first i'm sorry i murdered crabdad
> 
> and second! update schedule might be a little wonky for a while, but that's proooobably gonna mean more than one update a week rather than one less, so never fear u.u (and if it will be more than a week between updates, i'll try to let you guys know!)


	9. he was never gentle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter track: "come home" by cloud cult
> 
> warnings: blood, quite a bit of gore, grief, unhealthy grieving

Your lusus is dead.

Your lusus is dead, your hive is in shambles, your moirail is bruised and bleeding, and you are in fucking _pieces._

You hunch over your lusus’ body, breathing raggedly. Your lungs feel torn and sore. You cannot fucking _breathe_ through the pain of it. Your lusus. Your lusus, your crabshitter, your _teachercomforterprotectercaretaker._ All of him, just—gone. Without warning, without reason. His blood cools brightly on your hands, beneath your claws, between your fingers. This place smells like violence, like death. Like Alternia.

Gamzee leans against you, a line of cool comfort along your side. He’s whispering into your hair, soft prayers and broken scriptures. He does not try to soothe your pain away, for which you are grateful. This is one pain you must bear completely. You owe your lusus that much. You smooth one hand shakily across the crest of his head, the hard plates of carapace along the back of his neck and shoulders. Touch a claw to one jagged, broken spike.

You remember him.

He chose you. Out of all the stupid grubs in those caverns, he chose _you._ He looked at you with those flinty gray eyes, he beheld you in his heart, and he _chose_ you. Scooped you up and cradled you against his chest and carried you home. He watched over your cocoon as you pupated that first time, and he helped you build your hive—suggested all the proper blocks and snapped at you whenever you proposed something egregious or dangerous in the blueprints (like the training block filled with a variety of weapons and attack ‘bots that you _insisted_ you needed).

He stood guard while the carpenter droids built your hive, fussing at them to make sure every single stone was in its proper place and hissing at any other wiggler or lusus who dared to set foot in your lawnring. He hunted for you when you were still too little—all soft gray skin and nubby orange claws and barely-there horns. Later, he would teach you. You would ride on his back as he took you out to the forest or plains, and you would watch as he hunted. When you finally selected your weaponkind, you hunted alongside him.

And oh, how _angry_ you were when he wouldn’t teach you to fight once you had your sickles and your combat schoolfeed available. But no matter how much you nagged him, or climbed all over him, or threatened him, he never made a move to fight back—not until you were three sweeps old, your skin as tough and thick as a wiggler’s hide could get, your second set of fangs already grown in. Then he taught you. He taught you how to skitter away from an opponent’s blows, how to protect your soft spots, how to never stay rooted in one place. He taught you to use your sickle properly—great, sweeping arcs and short, slashing blows to mimic the strikes of his pincers. He taught you to snarl and growl and _shriek_ at the top of your angry fucking lungs.

More importantly than all of that, though, he taught you what it was to love.

His carapace was the hardest part of him—everything under that was soft, but he was not _gentle._ Oh, he was never gentle. He was fire and strength and _passion._ He would irritate you to fucking world’s end, but always, always he would love you. He never once raised a pincer to hurt you without cause, and he never let you go to ‘coon without seeing him there in the hive, standing his guard. He would never let anything hurt you. Not even, so it would seem, the death of your moirail—and surely that would have hurt you more than anything else. Surely it would have killed you, slowly and painfully.

But this hurts too.

This hurts so _much._

You bow your head to him—to that beast you shared your hive and heart with—and you sob your broken fucking heart out. Gamzee rests a trembling hand on your back, and you draw what strength from him you can. He’s here. He’s here, he’s safe. Your palemate is safe. Your lusus saved him. Your lusus—

Oh, your _lusus._

You feel like you can’t breathe through your sobs. Your body shakes with the force of your grief, and you are being torn the fuck apart. You press your face into your lusus’ shoulder, heedless of the blood, and breathe his scent in deep gulps. That scent—sharp and spicy and so achingly familiar—used to make you feel safe. Now it causes a lump to swell in your throat, and you gasp for air around it.

How can you survive this? How can you possibly bear it?

You cannot, and so you change it. You grit your teeth and your breath whistles sharply between them, your grief curdling into something darker and stronger and _safer._ Your claws curl into your palms, tiny pinpricks of pain that sharpen your focus. There’s a low, rattling rumble in your chest—a savage growl you can’t consciously make _or_ stop. Not that you want it to stop. No. You are so— _fucking angry_ you think it’s never going to stop, and you don’t _fucking want it to._

You stagger to your feet, your clothes sticking to you with your lusus’ blood. Relax your fingers just enough to curve your claws into hooks at your sides, your jaw rolling back as you bare every last goddamn fang at the larger lusus in the middle of your kitchen. It’s dead already, you know that. It fails to matter, though. This fucker killed your lusus. It killed your lusus and you are _burning_ with a rage you have never felt before—but it feels fucking _good._ It’s so much better than grief. Anything is better than that black, awful, empty grief.

You see Gamzee tip his head back, his eyes meeting yours for a split second. There is grief in his eyes, too, and it stings. Your rage swells within you, a snarl rolling behind your ribs. This goddamned _fuck_ didn’t just take your lusus—it took Gamzee’s, too. You are going to make a motherfucking _example_ of it. You prowl forward, and Gamzee doesn’t move to stop you.

The first thing you do when you reach the cholerbear is _tear its fucking belly open._ You don’t bother with your sickles—this bastard doesn’t deserve the fucking _honor._ You will have it laid open with tooth and claw alone. You sink your claws into the hide just beneath its sternum, tearing through layers of thick fur, and you _slice._ The first cut gets you nothing but fur and skin—the second draws blood, the third slashes through muscle, and the fourth opens its fucking guts to the air. You plunge a hand inside and rip them out.

Once you’ve spooled the cholerbear’s intestines around your feet in rusty, heavy coils, you dig back in. You will have its fucking _heart._ You tear your claws through the heavy sack of its stomach, gouge the thick lump of its liver. The thin muscle of its diaphragm collapses beneath your fingers, and you feel the soft, deflated tissue of its lungs against your palm as you shred through them, a low, gurgling hiss in your throat. You’re shoulder-deep in its carcass by the time your hand wraps around its heart.

You yank backwards with all your might, your claws slashing through the enormous blood vessels and sinews that hold the heart in place. It comes loose more easily than you had anticipated, and you crash backwards, into the pool of guts you’ve made. You snarl, flicking blood off of your claws and cradling the heart in your blood-soaked palms. It’s heavy, rusty-red, lined with veins and arteries. Still warm.

You sink your teeth into the flesh and _tear it to ribbons._

Once you’re done with that, you drop the tattered pulp onto the floor. Lick your fangs clean and swallow the blood. Then you stalk towards its head, your claws twitching at your sides. You kneel next to its massive jaws and pry them open with an unforgiving _crack._ Its teeth gleam in the moonlight, massive and yellow and stained with your lusus’ bright blood. These were the teeth that killed him. These were the teeth that _ruined your fucking heart._

You take hold of one of the long, slick canines, and you rip it out of that fucker’s mouth. Tuck it into your pocket and then tear its tongue out for good measure, just before you turn your attention to slicing its beady eyes out of its head and crushing them between your teeth. Only after that do you draw your sickles. Chop its head off and scoop it up, cradling it in your arms. You stalk outside and look at the lawnring next to yours. You won’t be the only troll without a lusus, this morning.

You toss the head into the rustblood’s lawnring and step back inside.

You study the cholerbear’s body, jaw aching as you clench your teeth. Your rage is waning—in its place, fear. Still, that’s better than grief.

“Get up, Gamzee.” Your voice sounds hoarse and unfamiliar to you. “We’re leaving.”

Gamzee gets up without a word of protest, and your eyes fix on the purple blood streaking his clothes, slicking across his right forearm. Your rage bubbles up again, but you clamp down on it and cross over to him. Take his arm in your bloody grip and he doesn’t even flinch—you feel a surge of pity, at that, and you gentle your hold some. There’s a short, wide gash running diagonally across his wrist. It’s stopped bleeding, but you know it could start again with any provocation, as wide as it is.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” you demand, glancing up at him. He shakes his head. “Good. Come on.”

You tug him into the ablutions block and strip his clothes off, along with yours. You blast the water cold and duck under it, letting the chill strip away the last of your rage and leave you gasping. You crank it back to lukewarm before you tug Gamzee under with you, rinsing rust and red and purple from his skin. His arm bleeds again.

Once the two of you are free of blood, you step out of the trap and shake your hair dry. You reach for a towel and wrap it around Gamzee’s forearm, pressing it there firmly. “Keep that there,” you order him, and he sets a hand carefully against the towel. You snag the wound-care kit from the cabinet and pop it open, quickly threading a needle. “Okay. Let me see. This is going to hurt, but try not to move.”

Gamzee nods, leaning back against the cabinet and closing his eyes. You ease the towel from his forearm and splash medicinal wound-disinfectant across his arm. He sucks in a breath through his fangs, his arm shuddering. You’re being too rough with him, god, you know are, but you just—you can’t reach it, can’t reach that place inside your head that lets you be gentle and soft. Everything is sharp angles and cold spaces and Gamzee is hurt, he’s _bleeding,_ fuck fuck fuck—

You drag a breath in, carefully dabbing the skin around his wound dry again. You examine it carefully, making sure there’s nothing filthy still stuck inside—it won’t do to sew infection into his skin. Once you deem it clean enough, you begin stitching the wound shut. Your sutures are jagged and unpracticed, but they do their job and hold your moirail’s skin together. You leave a small spot at the top open so it can drain, then slather it in antibacterial ointment and wrap it tightly in a bandage.

“There,” you say, once you’re done. You glance up, and Gamzee is shaking. His paint is blurred from the water. His canines have broken through his lip, and there are two twin spots of blood there. You lean up and kiss them away, clumsy and rough. “Sorry, I’m—sorry. I know it hurt. Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“‘s okay,” Gamzee says. His voice is soft. He reaches up and smooths a hand through your damp hair. “What next, brother?”

“Get dressed, fix your paint, start packing.” You step back from him and head for your respiteblock. You’ve got everything you needed from the shop in your rucksack, but there’s still room in your sylladex for a few essentials. “We’re getting on a ship.”

“The ship leaving tomorrow?” Gamzee asks. He doesn’t sound surprised, or scared, or—anything, really. It’s better that way. You can’t comfort him right now, so his numbness is a relief to you—an awful relief, but a relief all the same.

“Yeah,” you say, not waiting for his response and taking the stairs two at a time as you race for your respiteblock. You have to get out of here before that rustblood comes looking for her lusus and takes something else precious from you—of which there are few options left.

If anyone so much as fucking breathes in Gamzee’s direction, you’ll kill them.

You yank on clean clothes and a suncloak, slip the cholerbear’s tooth into your pocket again, cram what you can into your sylladex—clothes and electronics, mostly—and then bolt downstairs again. Gamzee is still packing his things, so you pace the floor where it’s unmarred by blood, your heart thundering in your chest. You have to go, you have to leave, have to flee _right fucking now._ You click nervously in your throat, your fists bunching at your sides.

As soon as Gamzee returns to your side, his rucksack tucked over his shoulders, suncloak already pulled up over his horns, his paint clean and smooth again, you duck out of the door. He follows on your heels, and you don’t look back at your hive, not a single fucking time. There is nothing there for you. The two of you plunge back into the forest, into the dim shelter of its branches. The sun is abhorrently bright, and the colors are too fierce and loud and horrible. You feel like you can’t quite catch your breath.

You head north, for the shipping dock outside of the city, where an export ship will be waiting for you to stow away on it. You troll Sollux, brisk and abrupt, and ask him to disable its locks and alarms when he can. You ignore his questions. Your pace is quick and steady, although you feel worn down to the bone with exhaustion. Gamzee matches you stride for stride, his head ducked and his eyes fixed on the ground. He doesn’t speak. There isn’t a smile on his face.

It makes your stomach twist.

Your mouth still tastes like the cholerbear’s heart.

You stop a moment, gagging, and then crouch down and retch into the brambles next to you. Gamzee makes a soft, distressed little sound and kneels next to you, resting one broad hand on your back. You shudder and lean against him, scrubbing your mouth across your sleeve. Your tongue tastes like bile and acid, now. It’s far better than the flesh of that rusty heart.

“Best friend?” Gamzee moves a hand up to pet through your hair as you struggle to steady your breathing. “You think we oughta stop a minute? Just so a motherfucker can—”

“No.” You surge back to your feet, gritting your teeth. “We can’t stop. She’ll be—that rustblood will be looking for us, for her lusus, and we won’t make it to the ship on time if we stop now. We have to keep going.”

“I—that’s fair, little brother, but I really think you need to—”

You shake his hand off and plunge forward, whacking bracken and brambles viciously out of your way. You don’t have time to deal with this—with feeling, with existing, with any-fucking-thing but moving forward. You’ll have time on the ship. You’ll have perigees of time on the ship.

Gamzee lets out a soft breath behind you, but he speaks no protest. He follows.

The two of you reach the shipping dock just before evening, pausing in the shadow of a large warehouse. You’re weary and achy all over, your skin sore where the sun flashed against it for minutes too long during the day—the tip of your nose, your cheeks, your fingers. Your head is dull and quiet, all the feeling stamped out of you by your endless march. Even when your eyes land on the ship that will sail you across the stars, you can only regard it with the flattest of appraisals. It’s a large ship, though not heavily-armored. There are no weapons mounted on it—leastways, not any you can see.

“Is that her?” Gamzee asks, pausing beside you. “That our ship, little brother?”

You nod.

“How we gonna get inside?”

“Sollux said nobody else would be on the ship until tomorrow, when it’s scheduled to leave,” you say. Your voice sounds hollow to your own ears. “The only guards should be around the perimeter. We just need to sneak around them and get the hatch open. We’ll find somewhere to hide once we’re inside.”

“And how’re we gonna get that hatch open? It’s bound to be locked, with nobody boarding and all.”

“Sollux should have disabled the locks for us,” you tell Gamzee. You glance back at him, studying his face. “You haven’t had sopor all day. Can you use your ‘voodoos to scare the guards away?”

Gamzee hums quietly, leaning against the side of the warehouse. He drops his chin, and his hair tumbles into his eyes. For a long moment, he doesn’t answer. Then he says, “No. Still can’t reach that part of my pan, best friend, not for full—not enough as would scare anything bigger than a motherfuckin’ meowbeast.”

You let out a soft breath. Ah, well. It was a distant hope to begin with. “That’s fine. We can figure something else out. Let’s—”

“No, hold up.” Gamzee lifts his chin, and his eyes are sharper than you’re used to seeing them. Slow, ugly fear buzzes beneath your ribs. “I have an idea. I can’t scare those guards away, but I think I might be able to distract ‘em long enough that we can make a run for it. You up for that, motherfucker?”

You meet his eyes. He scares some cowardly, primitive part of your pan when he shows you these flashes of how cunning he really is, but so does every-fucking-thing else, at the moment. What the fuck do you have to lose, anyway? Your life. His life. And you know Gamzee wants to avoid those with everything he’s got, too.

“What’s the plan?” you ask, and he offers you a tiny, sharp little grin.

“Get ready to run, best friend. I’ll watch your six.” He glances off to the side, towards the thick trees that brush up against the fencing surrounding the dock. A second later, a cacophony of sound erupts in the forest, and an enormous black mass swarms into the sky—featherbeasts, you realize. Hundreds of featherbeasts, shrieking to each other in their terror, their wings churning desperately at the air. The guards’ eyes snap in their direction, and soon after their bodies follow. Curiosity murdered the fucking meowbeast. “Go,” Gamzee says urgently, nudging your shoulder. “Hurry up, now. Won’t be long before they figure out there’s nothing over there worth being suspicious of.”

You take off, bolting as quickly as you can across the pavement towards the ship with Gamzee on your heels. The sound of your shoes pounding across the pavement is abhorrently loud in your ears, your breath rushing through your chest and your heart thudding far too noisily behind your sternum. You’re there within seconds, skidding to a stop beneath the hull of the ship. Gamzee stumbles to a stop after you, his eyes wide and ears pricked on high alert.

The featherbeasts are still screaming.

“Hurry, best friend,” Gamzee urges you. “I can’t keep the fear in those beasts any longer. They’ll settle themselves down as soon as they realize the few that spooked them up were in the wrong.”

“Hurrying, I’m fucking hurrying—” You reach up, fumbling for the handle on the sidehatch and hoping to fucking everything that Sollux has had enough time to work his freaky hacker magic. You squeeze the lock on the inside of the handle, and for a breath-stopping second it holds—and then it clicks, and the airlock releases. The hatch hisses open. You don’t have a stepladder to help you up, but you do have a Gamzee, which is almost the same thing. He hoists you up and you scramble into the ship’s hull, then reach down and pull him up after you. You tug the hatch up, and it seals shut, ensconcing the two of you in darkness.

For a second, the both of you just sit there, panting. Your limbs tremble. You did it. You just fucking did it. Oh my god you’re a criminal.

Well, at least if you’re culled, it’ll be for a reasonable reason, instead of just for your shitty blood color.

“Wow,” Gamzee says. You flick an ear absently in his direction to let him know you’re listening. “We did it, huh? We’re—here. Motherfuck.”

“Yeah.” Victory tastes sour. You stand up, offering Gamzee a hand and hauling him up after you. “Come on. Let’s find a hiding spot.”

Crates upon crates upon crates surround you, in the storage bay. There are crates of sopor concentrate, of horn and claw polish, of hard chitin armor and military weapons—Alternian things that can’t be made on Earth. They’ll fetch a high price from immigrant trolls, you imagine. You creep among them until you find a wide gap between two enormous crates. With Gamzee’s help, you slide several smaller crates in front of the gap, forming a wide square of space, with the ship’s wall at the back. It’s a bit of a hassle to climb up and down the crates in the front, but it’ll keep you from being seen—at least right away.

The two of you tuck yourselves into your little fortress of crates, and Gamzee huddles up next to you. Hugs his knees to his chest. You decaptchalogue a packet of sopor concentrate, a bottle of water, and a small plastic bowl. You sprinkle some of the concentrate powder into the bowl, then mix it with water, until it’s thin enough that it doesn’t sting when you touch it. It hasn’t quite gelled up the way it should yet, but it’ll work.

“Here.” You nudge the bowl towards Gamzee. “Before you start going through withdrawal. I can’t fucking deal with that right now.”

Gamzee obligingly takes the sopor, wolfing it down in several large gulps. You hand him the water bottle and he downs that, too. You realize he must be starving—the two of you haven’t eaten anything since you left, and you don’t know if he ate before that or if he was too busy being mauled by lusii. A small ration pack, one you’d just bought from the shop the night earlier, is decaptchalogued next. You hand it to him, and he tears it open without pause. Scarfs down the dry bread and jerky within it and then looks at you, frowning.

“You need to eat too, brother,” he says. “Best keep up your strength. You don’t know what tomorrow brings.”

You want to fight him about it—eating is the last thing you want to do, fuck. But he’s right. If the guards discover you tomorrow, you’ll have to fight, and you’ll need your energy to do that. If not for yourself, than for him. And so you eat. The rations are dry and flavorless on your tongue, but they fill your belly, and you wash them down with several long draughts of water.

“Best friend?” Gamzee asks quietly, tipping his head in your direction. You grunt to acknowledge him. “I’m sorry about your lusus. I—I’m sorry I was there. He might not have fought so hard, if only I had—”

“Stop.” Your voice is hard. Sharp. “It’s not your fault. I brought you to my hive. I knew what could happen.”

“You did,” Gamzee admits weakly. “And you said I ought not to come with you, but I pushed you, brother, I kept _pushing_ and because of that—”

“He did what he was hatched to do. He died protecting a wiggler. He died taking care of me and mine, the way he should have.” You hug your knees to your chest. He should never have died. Never. Fuck. (A small, wigglerish part of you thought he never could.) “I should have brought you to the shops with me. I should have known better than to leave you alone there. There are a million things we could have done differently, but they don’t matter now. It’s over. He’s dead.”

“I know.” Gamzee’s voice is a whisper. He turns and buries his cold nose against the crook of your neck. You cup the side of his head. “I’m sorry, Karkat. I’m so sorry. I wish you didn’t have to hurt this way.”

But you—don’t. Hurt. Nothing _hurts,_ right now, not anymore. Everything is slow and numb and tired. You like it better this way. You don’t ever want to feel grief the way you felt it in those first few minutes after his death. Felt like drowning. Felt like dying. You will not feel it again. You will build a wall of hate and rage and cold fury in its way, and you _will not let it in._

“It’s okay,” you murmur, your voice softening some. You turn and slip your legs around Gamzee, pressing your knees to his sides and winding your arms around him. Breathe in his scent. You’re okay. You’re alive, your palemate is alive, you’re okay. You need not grieve. “It’s okay, Gamzee, shh. I’m sorry, too. I know you liked him, I know it has to hurt.”

Gamzee makes a broken sound and you know you’re right. You hug him tightly to yourself, let him press his ear to your chest and hear the thump of your heart. “Best friend, little Karkat, it should be I as is comforting you. Your lusus, your fucking _lusus—”_ He breaks off with a ragged breath, and you squeeze him to you. You want to fold him into yourself. You want to protect him with everything you have.

If you just focus on that, everything seems a little bit okay.

So you hold your moirail in your arms, press kisses into his hair and wipe away his tears and for love of him, you do not grieve.


	10. intermission a

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter track: "starlight" by muse
> 
> warnings: mentions of death, animal death, mentions/threats of violence, awful alternian sterotypes

Your name is John Egbert, you haven’t heard from Karkat or Gamzee in a few days, and you’re—well, you’re starting to get a little worried. As much as Karkat insists you’re _not,_ the three of you are definitely buddies (at least by human standards; troll standards are _weird)._ When you haven’t heard from one of your buddies in a few days you tend to get a little nervous. _Especially_ when aforementioned buddies live on a hellish murder-planet with things like culling forks and imperial drones who _really_ want them to have sex.

Point being: you’re worried. What’s more, you think your dad is starting to catch on.

“Why the long face, my boy?” he asks, setting a plate of bacon and eggs on top of the open book you’d been aimlessly thumbing through. “I know English homework is a tragedy, but it doesn’t usually make you look _this_ sad.”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing,” you say, yawning and reaching for a fork. “I mean—yeah, English sucks, but not more than usual.”

“So what’s the problem, then?” Dad takes a seat across from you with his own plate, munching on a slice of bacon. “Anything I can do to help?”

You shake your head, shoveling down a mouthful of eggs and inching the plate to the side so you can continue the absolute joy (not) of skimming _Hamlet._ “I don’t think so—but it’s okay, really,” you insist, offering him a grin. You know he’d let the topic drop if you stopped there, but he _does_ have good fatherly advice, most of the time—and you could really use some good fatherly advice right about now. “It’s just Karkat and Gamzee. They haven’t trolled me in a few days, and I guess I’m worried something might have happened.”

“Ah.” Your dad scratches his chin, humming thoughtfully. “That is worrisome. Have you tried sending them a message?”

“Yeah, a few times. Neither one of them has responded.” You pull out your phone, flicking helplessly through your Pesterchum messages again. You have a new message from Dave, and another from Terezi—that’s nice, at least. “And their planet is just so—creepy, I just—what if they’ve been hurt, you know? Or culled?”

Dad raises an eyebrow at you. “Culled?”

“Killed,” you clarify. You push your plate out of the way, resting your chin on top of _Hamlet_ and breathing in its musty book smell. You’re not hungry anymore. “There’s lots of—killing, on Alternia.”

“So I’ve heard.” Your dad frowns, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on the table. “But these boys have taken care of themselves for—how long is it, John?”

“Six sweeps,” you mumble. “‘s like thirteen years.”

You imagine what it would be like to be thirteen years old _and_ living on Planet Hell. Puberty plus the imminent threat of death? Jeez. That sucks.

“For thirteen years,” Dad continues. “Surely they know how to avoid being culled by now. Maybe they’re out exploring, or hanging out with their friends. I wouldn’t worry so much about it just yet. If they haven’t answered you in a week’s time—”

“No, you don’t _get_ it.” You glance up at him, frowning. “You don’t _explore_ on Alternia. You don’t _hang out with friends_ on Alternia. You hunt and you fight and you kill and that’s _it_. And yeah, they’ve been doing that forever, but—” You shrink down, hunching your shoulders. “There can still be accidents. Karkat says the Mothergrub lays thousands of eggs all at once, just because so few of the wigglers survive to adulthood.”

You dad is quiet for a moment, studying his own breakfast with a crease between his eyebrows. Then he takes a deep breath and says, “I’m not sure what to tell you, son. If their planet is that awful, then they _could_ have died.”

Wow, okay, that was so totally not what you wanted to hear.

“But I don’t think you should be jumping to that conclusion yet,” he continues, before you can delve too deeply into your impending mental breakdown because _holy shit what if your buddies are dead._ “A lot can happen in a few days, and they may not have had the time to answer you. Give it a while longer. If there’s so much danger on their planet, they might be distracted trying to stay safe. Maybe one of them is sick or injured, but that doesn’t mean they’ve died.”

“Yeah.” You swallow hard. Hamlet’s dialogue blurs in front of your eyes, and you blink rapidly. “Yeah, okay.”

“Oh, John.” Dad’s voice is soft and sympathetic, and he stands up, resting a hand on your head. “You sure do know how to pick your friends.”

You scrub your wrist across your eyes. “They’re worth it. I don’t care if it makes me feel like shit sometimes, they’re _worth_ it.”

“I know.” He ruffles your hair gently. “I didn’t mean to insinuate that they weren’t. I only wish being friends with them didn’t scare you so much, sometimes. C’mere.” He hooks his arms under yours, pulling you up and out of your chair and into a hug. You lean your head against his chest, swallowing hard. For a brief second, wrapped up in the safety of your dad, everything feels a little less awful. “You’ll be okay, son. Let me know if you hear from them, alright?”

“Right.” You nod, studying the striped pattern on his tie and trying hard not to cry.

“And have a good day at school, okay? Try not to worry too much, if you can.” He releases you, stepping back and sliding his plate into the sink. He picks up his briefcase, then slips his hat onto his head. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Okay.” You scoop up your own plate, setting it next to Dad’s. “Thanks, Dad.”

“You’re more than welcome.” He steps towards the door, then glances back at you. “And hey—I love you.”

A tiny smile manages to flicker across your face, at that. “I know. I love you too.”

“That’s my boy.” Dad grins at you before slipping out of the door and clicking it shut behind him. You slump back into your chair after he’s gone, groaning. Oh my god your friends are dead, they’re so totally dead and you’re studying _Hamlet_ , you can’t _believe_ this—and you’d just started going over singular and plurals in English with them, too, this is such _bullshit,_ this is the worst day _ever—_

Your phone chimes at you.

You sit up so fast you smash your knee against the table and hiss out a swear, fumbling to tug your phone out of your pocket at the speed of light. There, in blocky gray text, is the _best thing that’s ever happened on earth holy shit—_

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling  ectoBiologist [EB]

CG: EGBERT.

CG: WE NEED TO LEARN MORE ENGLISH SOON.

EB: karkat!!!

EB: oh my god hi!

EB: dude i thought you had died or something! don’t do that to me!!! i was worried sick!

CG: SORRY.

EB: are you and gamzee okay?

CG: YEAH.

CG: BORED AS SHIT, BUT YEAH. CAN YOU VIDEOCHAT US, OR SEND US ANOTHER LINK OR SOMETHING? WE NEED TO FILL THE FUCKTON OF TIME WE HAVE, SO WE MIGHT AS WELL DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE.

EB: i’m about to go to school right now, but i can definitely find a link for you! hang on just a sec—

ectoBiologist [EB] sent a link at 7:32 

EB: there! that one’s over plurals and stuff!

CG: THANKS.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling ectoBiologist [EB]

EB: aw, karkat.

EB: damn it.

EB: i wanted to talk to you.

EB: troll me later, okay? seriously. don’t leave me hanging for another three days or i’ll cry!

You drop your phone back to your side, grumbling under your breath. Jerk. But he’s an _alive_ jerk, so this is _still the best day ever!_ You’re practically skipping as you shove your books into your backpack and sling it over your shoulders, jogging outside to catch the bus to school. Finding out your friends are still living makes even the most tedious school day a little better, for sure!

* * *

 Your name is Gamzee Makara and you are hells of fucking worried about your palemate. You left Alternia a few nights ago, and he’s been off ever since. Well, actually, he _hasn’t_ been off. He huffs and he puffs, he studies his English, he eats and drinks and sleeps—he acts like a normal motherfucker. A little quieter than usual, maybe, though you chalk that up to him not wanting to attract the ship guards’ attention. What’s _off_ is that he _ain’t_ off. His goddamned lusus just died and now you’re fleeing your homeworld and—

And he hasn’t changed. He hasn’t cried. Hasn’t ranted. Hasn’t curled up in a ball and shivered himself into a panic. Hasn’t—done anything. And you feel like you should be grateful that he ain’t fucked up about it, but—

It doesn’t feel right. Feels like he’s hiding, and that ain’t any good.

He won’t let you do anything about it, though. He snaps at you whenever you try to get him to talk about what happened. Snaps and bristles and builds his walls a little higher and you, cowardly motherfucker that you are, back the fuck off. You don’t want to be walled out from him. You couldn’t stand that.

You do what you can, though. Pet his hair and kiss his cute little face and hold him tight, when he’ll let you. He does the same for you—crushes you to him whenever you start to cry, thinking about his lusus and your lusus and the hives you ain’t never gonna have again. You overwhelm yourself a couple of times, dwelling on the fact that you’re fleeing across galaxies from all you’ve ever known, and he holds you then, too. Whispers comfort into your hair and cradles your face in his warm little hands and reminds you where home really is.

And your home does interrupt your thoughts all of a sudden—comes climbing over the crates in front of your hiding spot with something clamped in one hand and squeaking mad. “Look what I found,” he says, stretching his hand out to you. There’s a squeakbeast clamped between his fingers, its tail twisting and its legs scrabbling in panic.

“Shit, cool. You gonna eat it?” you ask, pricking your ears up. The squeakbeast smells like sopor and dry grain and fresh meat. “Make a nice snack.”

“Nah. Let’s let them live for a few weeks—they can start a colony.” He squints his eyes at the squeakbeast, then tosses it back over the crates. You hear it thump down and skitter away. “We can build up our own squeakbeast farm and _then_ we can eat them.”

“That’s some motherfuckin’ ingenuity, there,” you say, opening your arms and drawing him down against you. He settles against your chest, small and heavy, resting his chin on your shoulder. “We’re gonna be the best squeakbeast farmers in the whole _galaxy,_ best friend. Just you wait.”

He grunts noncommittally at you, and you brush his hair out of his eyes—it’s getting greasy already, and you feel a pang at that. You’re not quite sure how you’re gonna pull off ablutions in this bitchin’ ship. Sollux can disable the security cameras long enough for the two of you to sneak down to the ablutions block to piss and shit, but nothin’ longer than that, lest the guards get their suspicions on. Got a few bottles of dry shampoo from the shops, but it ain’t gonna last the whole trip, and you’re tryin’ to preserve it as long as you can.

Brother stirs in your arms after a few minutes, and you scent his sylladex before he decaptchalogues a half-empty pack of sopor concentrate. Goes about mixing it up with water, then sets it aside to let it gel up. You sneak a bite, but he clicks his teeth scoldingly at you after you do and so you settle back against the wall and rub his tense little back for him. Once the sopor’s thickened, he reaches out and dabs some onto his fingers, then smears it underneath your jaw. You grimace—sopor’s just fine if you’re resting in it, or shovin’ it down your maw, but you don’t exactly like bein’ covered with it all the time. Little brother insists it’s the only way to keep the guards from scentin’ you, though, and so you reluctantly oblige.

Once he’s rubbed a thin layer of sopor across your scent glands and up into the roots of your hair, you hug him tighter to you and nuzzle your nose up against his own little scent gland. Breathe deep, and there, just under the thick scent of sopor that covers his skin, you can smell _him._ Smells like sun-baked dirt and warm spice. You hate coverin’ that precious motherfucking scent up, but you sigh and dip your fingers in the sopor and go to work coverin’ it, anyway. Just a few more perigees, and then you both can smell like _you_ again. Everything will be better on Earth. You gotta believe that.

But until then, you’ve got him and he’s got you and you’re gonna be just fine.

Karkat takes your arm once you’re done covering up his precious scent. He unwinds the bandage there and examines the slash across your wrist critically—it’s healing up well, all clean and neat. He did a fine motherfuckin’ job of care on it. Even now, he lowers his head and rasps his tongue across your skin, cleaning it up gentle but thorough. His tongue is raspy and rough, but his saliva is warm and it eases off the sting some. You got a sudden wish to pile him, rub his little horns and make him feel as safe and cared-for as he does you—but your brother’s bristly about piling, now, especial when it comes to either one of you goin’ under. Doesn’t like the thought of bein’ so weak in this place of danger. You can’t fault him that.

Once he’s cleaned your wound up, he smears more ointment over it and wraps it up again. Drops his heavy, warm weight down against your chest, and you can’t touch his horns and put him under, but you can pet him, and so pet him you do.

“Best friend?” you ask softly, yawning and blinking out at the crates. You’re not sure what time it is, anymore. It’s always dark here. You’re sleepy, though. You think it might be getting near daytime, back on the planet. “What we gonna do, once we get to Earth?”

“Mm, whatever we want.” Karkat nestles his head beneath your chin, sliding a hand under your shirt and stroking his fingers lightly across your grubscars. You shiver and let out a soft little chirr for him. “I guess we’ll meet Tavros, eventually. Maybe John and Sollux, too. We’ll get a nice hive for the two of us, and we’ll have lots of food and we’ll be safe and nobody will be allowed to hurt us.”

“Just like the fish?” you ask, glancing down at him.

“The fish?”

“Yeah,” you say, snuggling closer. Cradle the back of his head, smooth your fingers along his precious scalp. Scratch just between his precious little horns, not near enough to put fear in him. “The floating fish. The ones what swim in the clouds.”

He huffs out a little laugh, wrapping his arms around your waist and closing his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, his voice real soft. “Yeah, just like the fish, Gamzee.”

* * *

 Your name is Sollux Captor and you are in Deep Shit.

“You _hacked an imperial spaceship?”_ Nuodel hisses at you, her ears flattened and her eyes blazing orange. You shrink back, every instinct howling at you to get away from an angry adult—an angry adult _subjugglator,_ fuck—before you get yourself gutted. Unfortunately, Noir is standing at your other elbow, and the wall is boxing you in from behind. You are so dead.  “And you had the nerve to do it from _our_ fucking _servers?”_

“I—look, I’m sorry, but it was an emergency, I—”

“An _emergency?”_ Nuodel bellows, flashing her ungodly sharp fangs at you, and you quail—drop your shoulders and glue your eyes to the ground, press your lips tight over your teeth to show her _i’m small, i’m small and unthreatening and please don’t hurt me—_ “What sort of _emergency_ did you have that could be worth hacking—and again I _motherfucking_ repeat—an _imperial goddamn spaceship?”_

“I—I—”

 _“What was it, you little fucker?”_ She slams her claws into the wall next to your head, tearing them down the concrete with an awful shriek of noise.

“My friends,” you blurt, flinching away from her—it puts you closer to Noir, but at this point you think you’d rather be near him than _her._ “My friends, they were in trouble, I had to save my friends—”

Nuodel throws her head back and _cackles,_ rolling her jaw back so you can see every single white fang as she does. “You hear that, Noir? You hear the little wiggler? Hark, now! He did it for his _friends._ How fucking _noble_ of him. May he bring the Imperial Fleet down upon our heads for the sake of his _friends!”_

“Your friends, Captor.” Noir’s voice is flat and smooth, and you think you’re going to choke on your own heart. “You put our entire operation in danger for trolls halfway across the universe. Do you understand what you’re saying?”

“I—” Your mouth works uselessly. Your tongue feels heavy and numb. “I don’t—I didn’t mean to put us in danger. The fleet, they couldn’t—couldn’t know it was me, they can’t even know they were hacked, I was so careful—”

“There are hundreds of trolls involved in this operation. There are hundreds of humans. _Hundreds,_ Captor. And you put all of us in danger for—how many, was it? How many of your friends were worth this monumental mistake?” Noir asks, his eyes narrow.

You shrink into yourself, swallowing hard. “Two.”

“Two.” Noir’s voice chills you straight down your bones. “You put hundreds of lives in danger for the sake of _two.”_

“But we’re not in danger! We’re not, I made sure of it—I would never have done something like this if I wasn’t confident about it.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t share your confidence.” Noir steps away from you, clasping his hands behind his back. “This can’t go unpunished, you understand. I can’t trust a hacker who follows his own whims without regard for the welfare or wants of his betters.” He takes a deep breath, and you feel like you’re going to be fucking _sick._ “You’ll go to the inquisition rooms. If you’re good for nothing else, at least we can still make an example out of you.”

“What? No!”

Noir freezes, and Nuodel snarls at you, long and low and rolling. _“What_ did you just say, you impudent little shitblood?” she demands, her claws curving at her sides.

“I said—I said _no,”_ you force out, gritting your teeth and breathing hard through them. You can’t go to the inquisition rooms. You _can’t._ You can’t handle that, you’re not strong enough, and—and what would happen to AA if you vanished? She can’t survive on her own, she _can’t—_ “My friends. They’re—valuable. They could be valuable to you.”

“Mm. I don’t need any more lowbloods running around my base, Captor,” Noir says, but he does look at you, and you know you’ve got a fucking _chance._ “What makes you think your friends could be worth anything to me?”

“Neither of them are lowbloods,” you say. That’s not— _technically_ a lie, though you’re fairly sure KK is lower than low. (You’re also fairly sure he’s going to kill you for this, and you’d deserve it, but for _AA—_ for AA, you _have to.)_ “One of them is—is off-spectrum. A mutant. He could have abilities he doesn’t even know about. If you find them, they could be useful.”

Noir snorts. “That’s a lot of _ifs,_ kid.”

“Could make expensive paint. Could make a profit,” Nuodel offers, her eyes glinting darkly, and your stomach rolls. “What color is he, wiggler?”

“Red, like—humans, human red—”

“Mm. Human blood dries too dark. Does his?”

“I don’t _know,_ I’ve never fucking—fucking _painted_ with it, shit—”

“And the other troll?” Noir interrupts, his eyes fixing on yours. “What of them?”

“He’s a purpleblood, but he’s calm, he’s easy to control—he’s doped up on sopor most of the time, and his moirail keeps a good eye on him. He wouldn’t cause any trouble, he’d make a good subjugglator for you with a little training—”

Nuodel pulls her lips back from her teeth, growling. “Sopor-sucker? He’s probably rotted everything useful from his fucking pan. Kin or not, he’d be dead within a week, here.”

“No, he’s—he’s big, he’s strong, he’s—”

“What’s his sign?” Nuodel demands. “I’d know his bloodline to know his prospects.”

“Uh—it’s like—” You draw his sign as best you can in the air, your fingers tracing the loops and swirls of it. “Like that.”

Nuodel huffs at you. “I can’t know what that looks like, little pissant. Write it on the wall, not the air.”

You turn around and scratch GZ’s sign into the wall behind you, your claws trembling. Once you’re done, you step back, letting Nuodel move in to look at it. She’s quiet for a long moment, her eyes narrowed, before an awful grin stretches across her face. She doesn’t even move to pull her phone from her pocket to look up the sign—she seems to recognize it on sight.

Something twists, cold and hard, in your stomach.

“I want him,” she says, her voice warped with delight as she licks her teeth. “I want him, Noir. I want the little purpleblood.”

Noir looks at her, and there’s something strange and wary in his eyes. “Do you, now? He’ll be useful to us?”

“Oh, _very_ useful,” Nuodel says, practically purring. “A little bit of proper raising to set him straight, get him off of that sopor, teach him the art of inquisition—he’ll be a subjugglator and a half once I’m done with him, I promise.”

“And you would spare this boy’s life to have him?” Noir asks.

“I would spare a thousand lowbloods and then some, to have him,” Nuodel agrees. “What’s his name, shitblood?”

“Gamzee,” you say, your voice stiff and halting. You feel like you’ve done something—bad. Something worse than what you thought you were doing, pawning off your friends like this.

“Gamzee,” Nuodel repeats, her voice sickeningly warm. “Well, then. Bring them to us when they land, little wiggler. Hack away, if it keeps them safe on their travels. We’ll get them set up safe and sound here when they arrive. Have us a _motherfuckin’_ good time.”

She turns and stalks out of your room, and Noir watches you impassively. “Do as she says,” he decides, finally, before turning his back on you and taking his leave.

You sag back against your wall, your heart thundering. Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit, that was close, that was closer than close, holy _fuck—_

You spin around, yanking your phone off of the charger and scrambling to look up GZ’s sign in the Alternian index. There are a few other trolls that share it, but the one that catches your breath—the one that makes your blood run cold, the one that makes your heart stutter in its rapid beating—is the oldest one, the one nearest to the top.

The Grand motherfucking Highblood. Of course. Of fucking course.

Oh, you are in Deeper Shit than you thought.

* * *

 Your name is Karkat Vantas, you have been on an intergalactic spaceship for almost four weeks now, and you are going _batshit fucking insane._ There is _literally nothing_ to do on this spaceship. You eat, you drink, you sleep, you shit. That’s it. That’s your life. Sometimes you catch squeakbeasts to assess the development of your squeakbeast colony. You tally the nights (days? you can’t tell the time anymore, without looking at your phone) on the ship wall. You troll your friends when you can be bothered to do so, but most of the time you just—stare at the crates and walls. You don’t think about the things that need to be thought about.

You know it bothers Gamzee, that you don’t think about those things. You know it’s not healthy. But there is no way you can face that grief again—not here, not now, not ever. It would damage you beyond repair. How can it not?

And so ignore it. You focus on other things. Like the walls, and the crates, and the squeakbeasts. And Gamzee—oh, do you ever focus on Gamzee. He’s the only thing that interests you here. The two of you are with each constantly, and ordinarily, you think that would drive you _fucking insane._ But the dark and the quiet are already doing that, and you and Gamzee have always gotten along well, anyway. He doesn’t ever get rankled by your insults or moodswings, and you, in turn, get to listen to his stories instead of the silence. It’s good. It’s not perfect, won’t be perfect until you’re off of this _fucking_ ship, but it’s good. You think you would have honestly gone mad without him.

Still, by the second perigee of your trip, you’re slow and lethargic and apathetic. You can’t exercise or train for fear of being heard or seen. For those same reasons, you stick to your small square of space in the hull most of the time. It makes you want to tear your own skin off. Everything smells wrong. It’s unfamiliar and too small and you _hate_ it as platonically as you can ever hate a thing. You sleep in random spurts—too much or not enough, you’re never sure. The trip even seems to be wearing on Gamzee. He’s quieter than usual. Tired. He doesn’t make as many shitty jokes, and he doesn’t hum silly little raps into your ear anymore. His paint isn’t as neat. You bite the stitches gently out of his arm near the beginning of the perigee, and the scar across his wrist is ragged and pale.

By the third perigee, you’re the fucking _bomb_ at reading and writing English. You’re a little rougher at speaking it—the two of you try to stay quiet most of the time—but you’re sure it’s enough to let you communicate on Earth. You videochat John, sometimes, to continue your progress. There are always creases of worry around his eyes when you do. He wants to know where you’re at—so you tell him. He gets _way_ too excited when he learns you’re coming to Earth. He begs you to come see him. You tell him no. He pouts, but he gets over it. He always does. You pick fleas out of Gamzee’s hair, but can never get them to stay away.

The fourth perigee, Gamzee slaughters your squeakbeast colony. He says he couldn’t stand their noises anymore, best friend. They were driving him crazy, best friend. No amount of sopor in the world could make this more bearable, best friend. You want to pile him. You want to pile him _hard._ But you dare not touch his horns at all, you dare not gentle him down, you dare not make him loose and soft and safe, not when the guards could find you at any moment. Not when there’s danger. Not when the possibility of a fight looms around each and every second.

The both of you suffer, and there’s not a thing you dare do about it.

The fifth perigee is when Sollux trolls you and ruins your fucking life. Not that you know it, at the time.

twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

TA: hey, kk.

TA: how2 your triip goiing?

CG: IT’S STUPID AND AWFUL AND TERRIBLE AND HORRIBLE AND I THINK WOULD RATHER HAVE BEEN CULLED.

CG: I SMELL LIKE SQUEAKBEAST SHIT AND SOPOR AND I HAVE FUCKING FLEAS AND THE LAST TIME I HAD FRESH AIR WAS FIVE PERIGEES AGO. I’M GOING OUT OF MY FUCKING MIND. THERE ARE SO MANY CRATES HERE. THERE ARE

CG: SO

CG: MANY

CG: CRATES

TA: yeah, youre not on a luxury liiner there, bud.

TA: but ii have a que2tiion for you.

CG: WHAT.

TA: where are you gonna go, once you get two earth?

CG: SOMEWHERE. ANYWHERE OFF OF THIS FUCKING SPACESHIP.

TA: were you planniing to 2tay wiith john or 2omethiing?

CG: NO. WE’RE GONNA GET OUR OWN HIVE, STUPID.

TA: but you need money two do that, don’t you? youll have to get a job.

CG: FINE, COOL, GREAT. IT CAN’T BE WORSE THAN SITTING AROUND DOING NOTHING ALL NIGHT.

CG: TRUST ME.

CG: BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING.

CG: EVERY NIGHT.

CG: FOR FIVE PERIGEES.

TA: yeah, yeah, ii know. you could get a job, ea2y. only youre 2iix 2weep2 old, and human2 dont liike hiiring troll2 that young. or hiiring troll2 at all, really. and iit2 not legal for them to iif youre, you know. an iillegal aliien.

CG: DID YOU TROLL ME JUST TO CAUSE AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS OR WAS THERE A REASON FOR THIS DEPRESSINGLY REALISTIC AND DREAM-SHATTERING CONVERSATION?

TA: ii can offer you a home, kk. you and gz. a home and a job.

TA: there2 thii2 place ii 2tay at that doe2n’t miind troll2. there are a lot of u2 here, actually. iit2 not exactly legal, but neiither are we, you know? theyll giive you food and 2helter and protectiion.

CG: WHAT’S THE CATCH?

TA: atta boy.

TA: they want gz to work for them as a 2ubjugglator.

CG: FUCK NO.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA]

TA: kk, you dont have a lot of optiion2 here.

TA: iif you try to get work anywhere else theyll arre2t you and 2end you back to alterniia, and you know whatll happen there.

TA: but iif you don’t work, you don’t liive.

TA: iit2 not liike iit2 forever. iif you hate iit that much, you can leave. but you 2hould at lea2t giive iit a 2hot.

TA: besiides, gz’2 a hiighblood. they liike that 2ubjugatiing 2hiit. iit2 iin theiir blood. you 2hould at lea2t a2k hiim what he thiink2.

TA: let me know what you deciide. iif you want, iill be there to piick you up at the 2tatiion.

twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

You don’t get the chance to ask Gamzee. Sollux does it for you, the fucker.

“It’s a good idea, best friend,” he insists, frowning at you when you tell him _no, no fucking way, absolutely not._ “Like Solbro said, it’s not for-fucking-ever. If we don’t like it, we leave. But we oughta give it a motherfucking chance, you dig? How come you hate on the idea that much?”

You scowl at the backs of your hands. “I hate it because they would use you, Gamzee. They’d make you hurt people—people you don’t know, people you have no reason to hurt. It’s the exact same as it would be in the fleet, except you’re not even an _adult_ yet.”

“Well, no it ain’t the same, motherfucker,” he says, slipping his fingers through yours and squeezing. “‘least not the way I figure it. It’ll keep us sheltered and fed for a season or two, just until we can figure some other fuckin’ way to survive. Aren’t many options right off the bat, us bein’ illegal and all. This seems like a most blessed opportunity from the messiahs, bro. Shouldn’t scowl down at it so hard.”

“I don’t want you to hurt people,” you say, your voice hollow. You lean your forehead against his knuckles. Your fear of him will be justified, if he hurts people. You’re scared to think that your dopey, gentle Gamzee could ever hurt anyone. You’re scared to think that he’s a highblood. “That’s not who you are.”

But you remember your squeakbeasts, and you’re—not sure.

“Well, sure it is,” he says gently. He smells like unhappiness. “I’m a purpleblood, bro. Born to be a subjugglator. Born to paint the walls with blood and get to thrashin’ those what deserve it. Messiahs’ most mirthful will.”

You glance up at him, up into those soft, gentle yellow eyes, and you feel sick. “Yeah?”

He shrugs helplessly. “I guess yeah, bro. And I figure if I can use that hatchright to keep us safe ‘n healthy—well, that’s just what a motherfucker should do, right?” he says. “Just makes sense.”

You release Gamzee’s hands and curl into yourself, hugging your knees to your chest. “Yeah,” you say quietly. “Maybe.”

He leans forward, bumping his forehead against yours. Lowers his head until your horns click. You want to push back. You don’t. “We’ll be okay, best friend,” he murmurs. “We’ll make a motherfucker work, you and I. And if we don’t like it how it is, we’ll make it something different.”

“They’ll take you off of sopor. You know that, right?”

“Mm.” He offers you a tiny smile. “Figure they will. But maybe we can do some bargaining. We’ll see.”

“Let Sollux know.”

“You got it, little brother.”

And then, on the last day of your sixth perigee on the ship, you arrive on Earth.


	11. earth, prepare thy fucking self

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter track: "jackrabbit" by san fermin
> 
> warnings: minor violence, allusions to ableism, a teeny bit of derealization
> 
> (and a happy wriggling day to karkat, too!!)

“Gamzee,” you whisper, your voice harsh in your throat. You reach over, poke him in the cheek. He twitches in his sleep, fingers curling. He’s an impossibly deep sleeper—slept through the ship’s whole damned landing, violent rocking and noise and all. You suppose that must be what eating sopor on a nightly basis does to you. “Gamzee, wake up, c’mon. We’ve landed. Wake _up—”_ You reach out, grab hold of the tip of his horn and jostle his head. That does the trick.

“Brother? What’re you doin’ up there?” Gamzee mumbles, reaching up to pat lazily at your hand, cracking an eye open.

“Waking you up, dumbass,” you hiss, releasing his horn. “Now come on. We have to hide before the guards come and find us. We’ve made it all this way—I don’t want us getting culled right before we finally get off of this great, floating imperial shitbucket.”

“Whatever you say, bro,” Gamzee pushes himself up, rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles and yawning wide enough to crack his jaw. His fangs gleam in the dim amber landing lights lining the bottom of the hull. “Where we goin’?”

“This way.” You lead him to the back of the hull and duck behind a large crate of weapons near the hatch. “Keep your head down—make sure your horns don’t stick up.”

Gamzee makes a sleepy, affirmative sound and curls back up behind the box.

“Don’t go back to sleep,” you warn. “We’re leaving soon.”

“Leaving?” A little crease forms between his eyebrows. “What d’you mean, motherfucker?”

“What, seriously? We landed, numbskull. As soon as the guards are offloaded and the workers start unpacking this hull, we’re making a run for it. We’ll go straight through this hatch as soon as it unlocks and we’ll find Sollux. I don’t know whether it’s day or night, so be prepared for the sunshine, if there is any.”

Worry creases around Gamzee’s eyes. “Right,” he agrees slowly, sitting back up and pulling his knees to his chest.

“Head down,” you remind him. His stupidly long horns are not fair _or_ convenient. He drops his chin onto his knees. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’,” Gamzee says, but the worry in his eyes doesn’t go away. “Just—gettin’ my think on, is all. I can’t fathom as we’re actually here, all of a sudden.”

You laugh dryly. “All of a sudden, huh? What, six perigees wasn’t a long enough flight time for you? You wanna huddle up in the dark a while longer?”

 _“No,_ fuck no, best friend,” he says, his voice suddenly vehement. “No fuckin’ way. Let’s get off this motherfuckin’ ship already.”

“That's more like it.” You hold your fingers out to him, half a diamond, and he presses his own spindly fingers against yours to complete it. He’s gotten thinner, with nothing but rations and sopor to eat. You didn’t have much food left after the fourth perigee, especially after he killed all of your squeakbeasts in one sitting—still, it makes something sting inside of your chest, to see him so pale and bony. You’re responsible for him, and what the fuck are you _doing,_ letting him get so scrawny? Fuck knows he didn't have much weight to spare. “Let’s go make Earth our bitch.”

The hull’s hatch hisses as it unlocks, and you push Gamzee behind you, bristling. You decaptchalogue a packet of sopor concentrate and tear it open, licking your teeth as the hatch slowly swings down. There’s an adult in front of you, setting up a ladder to enter the hull, but they freeze when they see you—and then they flatten their ears, show you all of their awful, terrible teeth and _snarl._ Something deep and old turns over in you, at that, screams at you to quail and tremble and beg mercy before you’re slaughtered.

Instead, you dump the packet of concentrate into their eyes.

 _That_ sends them screeching. They stumble backwards, away from the ladder, clawing desperately at their own eyes. You surge down after them, hauling Gamzee behind you, and you bolt _._ You see shadows and shapes in the corners of your eyes, adults swarming towards you, but you don’t focus on them. You can’t, not now—you can only focus on what’s ahead.

Right now, that’s an enormous, solid metal wall. _Shit._

Lanky arms grab you from behind, and you barely have time to snarl before Gamzee mutters in your ear, “Up you get, little brother,” and then proceeds to fling you into the air like a sack of fucking grain. Of course your escape had to be done in the most ungainly way possible, because it is a law of the universe that if given the chance to fuck with Karkat Vantas’ shitty fucking life, you must.

You twist midair, grabbing for the edge of the fence—your claws skitter across it but don’t hold, and for a brief second you’re sure you’re going to fall. Then something braces itself under your feet, and the sharp taste of ozone flashes across your tongue. You push your feet down against whatever immaterial psychic bullshit is holding you up, springing onto the top of the wall. “Gamzee—” You reach back down and he crouches, then lunges upwards, seizing your hand. You slam your weight backwards as hard as you can, yowling because _fuck shit damn_ he’s scrawny but he’s heavy and that _hurts—_

And then he’s balanced on the wall next to you, his eyes wide and his hands patting desperately at your shoulders. “Shit, you okay, motherfucker? I didn’t hurt you none, did I? Oh, fuck, _fuck_ —”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you gasp, clutching your shoulder. “Let’s go, come on—”

 You drop down on the other side of the wall, bending your knees to absorb the shock, and then peer back up at him. For a brief second, you pause. The sky behind him is rich and vast and dark, alien blue, with only the faintest dregs of red and orange light streaking through it. Your palemate is silhouetted in that gaudy light, his black curls twisting wildly around his painted face, his eyes wide. His horns flash in the light. He is so fucking beautiful.

Holy shit, you’re in love.

And then he’s landing hard next to you, stumbling to catch his balance and stretching a hand out for you. You grab it, tangling your fingers together and squeezing, and then you run. You don’t know where you’re running to, but you know good and well what you’re running from. You dart between enormous city skyscrapers, shoving your way through crowds of strangers—soft, hornless strangers, humans, real actual humans, _fuck—_ and snarl at them when they hurl expletives (English!) in your direction. You keep running even after the stomp of armored feet behind you fades, even after the last light leaks from the sky. You run until your breath is cold and shallow in your lungs, until your legs are numb and weak, until you think you’ll never run again.

And then, only then, do you stop.

Panting, you yank Gamzee into an alleyway between two tall buildings. It smells like shit here—you wrinkle your nose but lead him further back, until the two of you can put your backs against a wall and watch the alley’s entrance like an enemy. Wind whips around you, stinging your ears and the tip of your nose. Your claws digs into the back of Gamzee’s hand. He leans heavily against you, his breath clouding in front of his nose and mouth in dense white puffs.

 It takes several minutes for the two of you to calm down, and then Gamzee is laughing, the fucker—the sound is bright and joyful and everything you ever want to hear in your entire life ever. “Holy _shit,_ best friend!” he says, wrapping you up in a tight hug and ruffling your hair. You bury a wild grin against his shoulder. “Motherfucker! We did it!”

You let out a raspy, breathless laugh of your own, hugging him tightly. “Fuck yeah—goodbye, Alternia, you motherfucker,” you say, your voice trembling with vehement joy and fucking _victory._  For once, you feel like a goddamn success.“Earth, prepare thy fucking self.”

Gamzee giggles giddily into your hair, and you are so deeply enthralled—with him, with this place, with your _life,_ all of a sudden _._ (You know the feeling will pass, but you’re determined to enjoy it while you can.) “This is gonna be so motherfuckin’ _great,”_ he says. “This is gonna be so bitchtits, best friend, we’re gonna be so _happy—_ ain’t nobody gonna hurt us here, right?”

“Nobody,” you promise, leaning up to press your forehead to his cheek. “I’ll make sure of it. I’ll—”

“Now, now, don’t go making fairytales where there are none,” a dry, lisping voice interrupts you. A growl rattles up in your throat and you step in front of Gamzee, bristling. There’s a strange troll standing at the end of the alley—a yellowblood, if the twin horns on his head are anything to go by. He’s wearing a signless yellow coat, and he peers out at you from a pair of red and blue glasses. “You cheesy romantic, you.”

Shit. Shit is that who you think it is, _shit._ “Who the fuck are—”

“Come on, don’t play coy.” The yellowblood sneers at you, and a prickle of familiarity runs down your back. Blue sparks crackle around his horns, and your mouth floods with the taste of ozone again. “It doesn’t become you, KK.”

“Are you fucking—Sollux?” you demand, marching forward. This _asshole—_ who gave him the right to be so tall, huh? Do _all_ of your goddamned friends have to loom over you like fucking trees?

“Well, I’m not _fucking_ Sollux—most of the time, anyway.” He offers you a sharp slice of a grin, prowling forward and then reaching out to ruffle your hair. You try your best to snap his fingers off with your teeth. “But I _am_ Sollux, if that’s what you mean. Jeez, you’re a lot shorter than I thought you’d be. You’re not big enough to back up half your insults. You, on the other hand—” His eyes flicker back to Gamzee, who is watching the two of you uncertainly. “You might be enough to make up for it. GZ, right?”

Gamzee’s ears perk up at the nickname, his eyes brightening. “Hell yeah, motherfucker. You’re Solbro?”

“The one and only.” Sollux dips into a dramatic bow, which brings his head _riiiight_ into headbutting range for you—you lean up and slam your foreheads together because that was an opportunity just _waiting_ to be taken. He yelps and jerks back, glowering at you and rubbing his forehead. “You’re as much of an asshole in real life as you are online, huh?”

“Wouldn’t want to disappoint you,” you say, smiling sticky-sweet and fake. He rolls his eyes. “So—you're here to take us to our new hive, huh? Here to help me turn my moirail into the world’s best six-sweep-old subjugglator?” You don’t bother hiding the bitterness in your tone, and Sollux’s ears flatten back.

“Listen, it’s your choice,” he says, scowling. “I’m not _making_ you do anything. You’re free to go, if you’re gonna be an asshole about it.”

“Hey, there’s no need for that, motherfuckers.” Gamzee slips over to your side, dropping his chin between your horns and patting your hip. “Karkat don’t mean anything by it, bro. He’s just a salty little motherfucker, you know? We already talked it all over, and your way suits us both just fine. Motherfucking grateful to you for the opportunity, honest.” He tips his horns to the side and chirps appeasingly at Sollux, who huffs—but his ears and shoulders relax, and he inclines his own horns away from the two of you.

“Yeah, I bet,” he mutters. “Let’s just go. Our ride’s this way.”

He turns on his heel, striding back out of the alley. You latch onto Gamzee’s hand again—there’s no _way_ you’re letting him out of your sight yet, not when the two of you are on a foreign planet and in the first unfamiliar setting you’ve seen in—in six perigees, fuck. You tug him along after Sollux, your senses stretching wildly around you. Your ears twitch at every little sound, unused to so much _newness_ after six perigees of the same thing. Your nose twitches rapidly, your mouth parted to draw the air into your mouth. It tastes like garbage. Gross. This whole planet is fucking gross. It took you less than half an hour to decide that.

Sollux leads the two of you out to a wide, asphalt path flooded with lights mounted atop high poles. Near the side, there’s a large, boxy, gray—thing? You pace alongside it, examining it carefully. “The fuck is this?” you ask. “A—car?” You remember John telling you about cars, remember seeing pictures of them, but to see one in real life is—disorienting, to say the least. Humans are weird. Earth is weird. Everything is weird and doesn’t feel quite— _real._

“A truck,” Sollux says, tugging open one of the doors in the front and climbing in. “But—same concept, yeah. Get in.”

You reach out, tugging carefully on the latch on one of the front doors. It swings open, and the scent of—well, of  _something,_ strong and unfamiliar, floods your nose. Beneath that, you can smell the warm, salty scent of human skin and fried food. Your stomach rumbles noisily at you, and you lick your teeth, plunging into the car. You tuck yourself up tight in the seat, and Gamzee tries valiantly to cram himself in beside you.

“No, no—ugh, god, this is going to be so annoying.” Sollux flaps a hand at Gamzee. “Get in the back. The seats aren’t big enough for three of us up here, and mind your horns, for fuck’s sake. You’re tearing up the roof and I'm the one who's gonna get shit about it.”

You bristle up at that, a little—nobody gets to boss your moirail except _you,_ thanks _—_ but Gamzee only looks mildly chastised and ducks into the seat behind you without complaint, keeping his head down so he doesn’t tear more rents into the soft fabric of the roof. “So where we headin’, Solbro?” he asks, propping his chin on the armrest beside you. You reach over, absently stroking his hair out of his face—it’s greasy and matted and flea-infested and you have _no_ idea how you’re going to salvage it, but you’re damn well gonna try.

“Tontorak,” Sollux says, his hands flickering around the wheel that juts towards him. The truck rumbles to life beneath you with a growl, and you tense, grinding your teeth. “It’s a pretty big city in New York, less than an hour away. That’s where the gang’s base is.”

“Gang?” you ask, your eyes narrowing. You remember gangs, though you’re not sure how troll gangs compare to human gangs.

“Yeah. Not like trolls—they don’t run around killing each other indiscriminately to survive.” He pauses, then adds, “Mostly, anyway. And when they do, it’s neater. Our gang specializes in inquisition.” He hooks a thumb back at Gamzee. “That’s why they need you, purpleblood.”

“I thought purplebloods would be rare around here,” you say, leaning back against the rough fabric of your seat as the truck begins to roll down the asphalt path (road? is this a road?). “Don’t they all want to go off and join their weird clown cult on the fleet once they pupate?”

“Yep. Trolls are a rarity on Earth, let alone purplebloods. It’s why GZ’s valuable to them. They mostly see crippled purples, heretical ones, ones with weak-ass quadrants—ones that wouldn’t make it in the Church fleet. They all come here looking for a chance at a better life, and the gang gives it to them. For a price, I mean. They're used in inquisition and warfare for the gang, and the gang gives them food and shelter and anything else they need. It’s not a bad deal.”

“I’m surprised they don’t massacre each other,” you mutter, peering out of the glass pane next to you. Buildings and lights blur by, faint afterimages dancing along behind them. “A bunch of sadistic assholes like that, all in the same place. How’s the gang control them?”

“Moirails,” Sollux says, and you glance curiously at him. He shrugs. “In a sense, anyway.”

“Moirails? You’re telling me every single purple who comes here has a moirail?” You snort. “Forgive me if that smells like a crockload of steaming shit, fresh from the pulsating hoofbeast anus.”

Sollux wrinkles his nose. “Gross, dude. But no—a lot of them don’t come in with moirails. They’re assigned moirails if they don’t have one.”

“What? Seriously?” You growl irritably to yourself. That’s so—so _unromantic._ You can’t _force_ moirallegiance. That’s—gross, and bad, and gross.

“It works,” Sollux says. “And what’s worse? Assigning a moirail or inviting a massacre?” When you don’t respond, he nods like you’ve given him a definite answer. “Exactly.”

“Why would there be a massacre, bro?” Gamzee asks sleepily, and your fingers pause in their absent hair-petting. Gamzee nudges up against you until you resume. “My kin, what purplebloods you speak of—they’re all about family, ain’t they? That’s near the motherfuckin’ heart of the Church.”

“Most of them are,” Sollux admits. “The heretics don’t care so much for the Church, but they still like the whole—weird _family_ shit. That’s purples for you, I guess. They wouldn’t hurt each other, necessarily, but everybody else—well, that’s fair game.”

“But they wouldn’t hurt them, not unnecessary-like, right?  Not unless the motherfuckers deserved it. That ain’t—ain’t proper, ain't holy,” Gamzee protests, and your heart aches for him. He doesn’t know—can’t even begin to understand, has only the vaguest concept of—the violence and rage written into his own blood.

Sollux glances back over his shoulder, frowning slightly, before fixing his eyes back on the road. A pair of lights streaks towards you, and you flinch back, your eyes stinging, but they pass you without harm. “You’ve never seen a highblood in a rage, have you, GZ? They’re indiscriminate. Don’t give a shit who they hurt and who they don’t—until it comes to their quadrants, and even then, only barely."

“Oh.” Gamzee leans his head against your shoulder. “Well. _I’d_ never hurt anybody like that, ‘less they deserved it.”

You—want to believe that. You really, really do.

(You don’t.)

“Of course not—you’ve got KK, don’t you?” Sollux says, offering you a grin that looks more like a grimace. “Anyway, here’s how it’s gonna go down when we get to the base, okay? I’ll take you to the ablutions block first—no offense, but you guys smell like _shit.”_

“Tends to happen, when you haven’t had proper ablutions in six perigees,” you say, your voice dry. “Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities, you bastard. Maybe you should have booked us a cruise ship.”

“Like—seriously, I think you still have fleas, dude.”

“We do.”

“Oh my _god—_ don’t even get near me, don’t breathe in my direction, _fuck—_ we’re gonna have to burn the truck, evacuate the planet, that’s it, it’s over, I’m done—”

You bark out a short laugh, shaking your head. “Oh, fuck off with your melodrama. We’ll get cleaned up, don’t worry. Won’t spread our _pests_ to all your little purples. Although I wouldn’t mind spreading it to _you—”_ You lean towards him, leering, and he shrieks and jolts away, banging his shoulder against the glass pane but keeping his hands locked on the wheel. “C’mere, Sooooollux—don’t you want a hug? We’re friends, aren’t we? And this is our first meeting—shouldn’t there be lots of goopy emotions and affectionate headbutts?”

 _“Fuck,_ you did headbutt me, didn’t you—you fucking flearidden _bastard,_ I’ll fucking kill— _no get the fuck away from me oh my godshitfuck—”_ His voice gets all high-pitched and warbly when he screeches at you, and you fling yourself back in the seat and let yourself laugh at him. Asshole. You’re glad you know him. “I hate you, I seriously hate you—if I have fleas I’ll slit your throat.”

“Ooh, kinky.” You waggle your eyebrows at him just to see him fume, his cheeks flushing yellow.

“Oh, fuck _off—”_

Behind you, Gamzee chuckles—a low, raspy rumble that sounds like knives being dragged over a pile of gravel. _You’ve_ gotten used to the sound (you think it’s cute now, instead of unnerving, the way you did at first), but you see the hairs rise nervously on the back of Sollux’s neck. You grin, maybe a _little_ proud of that—your moirail is a badass, yeah. (Actually he’s not. At all. Mostly. But sometimes, if you squint through the sopor and the dopey smiles and the slouching, you can see the potential badassery there.)

“I sure am glad we all got our meet up, motherfuckers,” Gamzee says, nuzzling against your arm. “I ain’t never actually met a friend besides Karkat before.” He chuffs warmly at Sollux. “It’s nice. You’re a chill motherfucker, Solbro.”

“Not as chill as you, I’m sure,” he says, his voice back to a relatively reasonable volume and pitch. “But—thanks, I think. It’s nice to meet you guys, too.” Then, his cheeks still yellow, he chuffs sheepishly back at Gamzee. Gamzee’s eyes brighten, a happy little chirp in his throat, and you smush his face with your palm before you make yourself sick thinking about fucking cute he is.

“Okay, okay, enough mush,” you say. "Ablutions, and then what, Sollux?”

“Then I’ll take you to meet the bosses. Two of ‘em—this sketchy-ass human named Jack Noir, and his moirail, Nuodel. She’s an adult purpleblood.” Sollux shudders. “Gross.”

“Adults? Living with—wigglers?” you ask, your stomach turning unpleasantly. “And _not_ murdering them?”

“Moirallegiance miracles, brother,” Gamzee supplies helpfully.

“Just a few adults—most of them barely out of pupation. I think Nuodel is the oldest, and she only pupated—what, a sweep or two ago? Something like that.” Sollux shrugs. “It’s not that bad. Their moirails _do_ control them, most of the time. I’m not saying they’re _nice_ to wigglers, but nobody gets roughed up past what they can stand. Human adults are a bunch of pushovers, so you don’t need to worry about them. Not anymore than you would a wiggler, I mean. Just—try not to be a raging shitwad when you meet the bosses, yeah?”

“I’ll try my best to be a non-raging shitwad,” you agree, albeit with a grimace. Being a raging shitwad is your _thing._ Being a normal shitwad is no fun. “And after we meet them—what? We get food?”

Sollux snorts. “Yeah, you can get food. Fuck knows you need it—the both of you look like a wiggler tried to build a doll out of a pair of dirty rags and some pointy sticks.” You scowl at him, but he plows ahead before you can offer him another deluge of verbal slander. “You’ll have to see the medics' office, too. You’ll need to get your shots.”

You pause for a moment, narrowing your eyes. Shots? Nobody said anything about—

“Shots?” Gamzee demands, sitting up so fast his horntips slam into the ceiling and he yelps, huddling back down and rubbing his head. “Ain’t nobody said _nothing_ about shots, motherfuckers, I did not agree to this most atrocious of motherfucking torments when first I decided to come here—”

“Hey, hey, shoosh the fuck up—” You reach back, papping his cheek as formally as you can—you are _not_ slutting it up with your moirail in Sollux’s truck, absolutely _not._ You have _standards._ Admittedly low ones, but—but they’re still there! “What _do_ you mean, Sollux? Shots? The fuck do we have to get shots for?”

“Human diseases,” Sollux says, drumming his fingers on the wheel. His jaw tightens some, and you hear his throat click as he swallows. “They’ll fuck you up, dude. Trust me. You want those shots. Trolls aren’t made to fight off the illnesses they have here—and you can get them just like _that.”_ He snaps his fingers. “Your body doesn’t have a snowflake’s fucking chance in hell to fight it off.”

“I hate shots,” Gamzee says, and you think you hear a real actual _hiss_ behind his words, woah—you resume your papping, a little faster. His jaw is clenching beneath your fingers. “Would rather be getting an illness, brother.”

“Not these illnesses. I’m not kidding you, GZ. If they don’t kill you, they’ll put in the hospital for sweeps.” Sollux glances back at Gamzee, his eyes unreadable behind those stupid tinted glasses. “And then where would KK be, huh? All alone on Earth? Are you _that_ afraid of a few little needles? You’d abandon your moirail for your fear—”

“No!” Gamzee protests, flattening his ears, his eyes widening. “No, never, bro, never fucking _ever._ Don’t even think on it.” He pauses, leaning into your hand, and you smooth a thumb gently beneath his eye. Well. Look at you, slutting it up. Goddamnit. “They’re—really that bad? Those sicknesses?”

“Not all of them,” Sollux admits. “They’ll still take you worse than they would a human, since your body’s never experienced them before, but—some of them aren’t that bad. You don’t need shots for those. They’ll only give you shots for the ones that could kill or cripple you.”

“And how many is that?” you ask, scratching your claws behind Gamzee’s ear until he tears his eyes from Sollux and nuzzles into the crook of your elbow.

“Mm—ten? Eleven?”

Gamzee makes a choking sound, and you shoot Sollux your best death glare as you shoosh your oversized grub of a moirail.

“But they won’t give them to you all at once,” Sollux hastens to add. “They’ll do it over a few weeks, so your immune systems don’t get overwhelmed. You’ll have to stay in the base until you’ve gotten them all, though. But really, they’re not that bad. The medics are nice, I promise.”

“They'd better be,” you say, scowling at him and rubbing the back of Gamzee’s neck soothingly as he Has A Crisis into your filthy shirt. “Honestly. I thought I was done with being held down and forcibly jabbed with needles full of suspicious fluids after my third sweep.”

Gamzee makes a high-pitched little keen against your arm, and you groan and wrap your arms around his horns, hugging his face against you and glowering at Sollux—who is _grinning,_ the stupid little _shit._

“Shut up,” you hiss at him, propping your chin between Gamzee’s horns. “Just—shut up, you fucking nerd. This is _great._ This is just—just _fantastic._ Why don’t you just put up some fucking banners? Welcome to Earth, Karkat and Gamzee! Your lives are only going to get _shittier—_ let’s start you off with a round of medical savagery. Fuck, what a welcome!”

“What a welcome indeed,” Sollux laughs. “Oh, KK. This is gonna be a hell of a time.”


	12. fresh starts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: medical procedures/shots, references to child abuse/neglect
> 
> chapter track: "married life" by michael giacchino

Sollux stops the weird human thing—truck, was it? Whatever it’s called, it’s motherfuckin’ weird as shit—outside of a large, squat building with gleaming yellow windows. Karkat moves to climb out of the truck and you whine at him, cling tighter to his arm. You are so  _ motherfucking  _ upset right now. This is clearly the worst thing that has happened to anyone anywhere, ever. Shots. Fucking—shots. You can’t deal.

“Oh, shoosh, you big grub—” Your best friend scowls at you, but his voice is softer than usual-like. He yanks his arm away and slides out of the truck, then jerks open your own door. You slump out and grab tight to him again, burying your face against his neck. Smells like sopor. He’s smelled like sopor for far too long. “Come on, shhh, Gamzee. Nothing’s even happening right now. We’re just gonna go do some ablutions, okay?” He presses his lips to your hair and says, his voice nice and low, “Gonna pile you today, you fucking mess—but not right now, got it? Right now we have things to do, so pull yourself together. I’ve got you. I’m not gonna let anything hurt you, not in a way that won’t help. Trust me.”

And you do. Oh, Messiahs help you, you do. So you try your best to pull yourself together for him, sniffling and taking a big, deep breath. You stand up straight and nod at him, real determined, and he offers you an approving look. 

“Good. Now c’mon—I’m  _ so  _ ready for these ablutions, you have no idea—” He wraps his hot little fingers around your hands, tugging you along behind Sollux. 

“Try to keep your heads down,” Sollux instructs you as you near the doors. His stride is long and steady, but he looks uncertain—his shoulders are all kinds of tense, and he smells faintly of curdled milk, of fear. Shit makes you uneasy. You wrap an arm around Karkat’s shoulders and keep him tucked close to your side. “Nobody should bother us, but if they do, let me do the talking.”

“But of course, your lordship,” Karkat sneers, and Sollux shoots him a glare from out those wicked bi-colored lenses. “Lead the way. Your humble servants shall be right behind you.”

“Oh, shut your stupid mouth.” Sollux huffs at your best friend, but there ain’t no bite behind it, so you allow. They’re just playin’ at each other, you think. “Hurry up. I don’t want you two stinking up the whole place.”

Your brother rattles off an irritated little growl, but he quiets himself as soon as Sollux swings the door open. Bright light floods your eyes, and you shrink back, sucking breath in between your teeth. Mighty unpleasant, that. You blink the sting away as best you can and follow after your yellow-blooded brother. The whole place smells of unfamiliarity, of trolls what already laid claim, and it makes you prickle with unease. 

Sollux leads the two of you down a set of stairs off the front block, peeking real cautious around each corner before he leads you around it. He ushers you in through another door, into a big ablutions block with blue tile floors and concrete walls. It smells like soap and mildew, and there’s three little traps lined up along the far wall. A row of sinks on the adjacent wall, and a row of weird stalls  across from them.

“Here we are,” Sollux says, locking the door behind you. “Now get cleaned up, for god’s sake. Use whatever shit you can find in the traps—we can buy you some ablutions stuff of your own later. Are you gonna need like—” He waggles his fingers, shoulders twisting uncomfortably.  _ “Flea  _ shampoo or something?”

Best friend is quiet for a long minute—long enough that you drop your chin down to his shoulder and nuzzle up against him in your concern. He pats absently at your face before saying, “Probably. And do you have an electric razor?”

Sollux hesitates, eyes flicking over you and your moirail’s raggedy thatches of hair. “Yeah,” he says, after a second. “I’ll go grab you one. I—you’re probably gonna need clean clothes too, huh? Don’t guess you’ve got anything in your sylladex that  _ isn’t  _ as filthy and flea-ridden as you are.”

“Oh, yeah? What gave it away, assmunch?” Karkat asks dryly, scowling. “Fuck off and go make yourself useful. I’m gonna get my moirail naked now.”

“Alright, alright, I’m out—” Sollux raises his hands in surrender, ducking back out of the ablutions block. Best friend locks the door behind him, then points at you.

“Okay, jackass,” he says, that little scowl still on his face but his eyes shining with the starts of mirth. Oh,  _ fuck,  _ but you’ve missed seeing him happy. “Strip. Let’s get motherfucking  _ clean.” _

The two of you divest yourselves of your filthy clothing, and you depatchalogue the rest at Karkat’s prompting—you’ve worn all of it throughout the trip, and not a single garment has survived unscathed. “Trash,” Karkat declares, piling his own clothing into the garbage can near the row of sinks. “Trash, trash, trash, trash.”

You follow suit, albeit with regret—you’ve had most of these clothes for at least a sweep now. Some of them  _ are  _ getting a little too small for you, what with your slow growin’ and all, but you like them well enough still. Kinda sad to say bye to the little motherfuckers. You pat the garbage can affectionately once you’ve thrown away everything that reeks of that ship—old greasepaint containers and sopor packets, clothes and ration boxes, empty water bottles and old tubes of fangpaste. (Haven’t had any fangpaste since the first perigee on the ship, and this set of teeth is all the yellower for it. All kindsa unfortunate.)

“There,” your best friend says, clapping his hands together and huffing his satisfaction once everything you don’t need is in the trash. “Now—”

There’s a loud rap at the door and Karkat pads over to it. Cracks it open and peeks his little head out, his ears flattened. You recognize Sollux’s voice as the two of them chatter at each other a minute, and then your best friend draws back inside and locks the door again. He’s got an electric razor in one hand and is holding a pile of clothes very tentatively in his claws. He sets them down on the counter, glancing over at you. 

“Don’t touch  _ any  _ of that,” he says. “Not until the fleas are gone. We don’t need them getting all over these clothes, too.”

“You got it, bro,” you agree most enthusiastically—if there’s one thing you aren’t gonna regret getting rid of, it’s these damn  _ fleas.  _ They itch something fierce, all night every night, and it’s hard to resist the urge to scratch at ‘em, even if your brother tells you not to. There’re tiny purple bumps all over your ankles and legs and ears, and thin little scratch-lines all between them from your itchin’. Shit’s most motherfucking unmirthful. 

Karkat slinks his little self over to one of the traps, pushing the gray curtain aside and looking all around in it. It’s mighty small, you think—but then, you guess humans don’t really get to be that big, even when they’re adults. “C’mere,” your best friend says, motioning you over to him. You come willingly enough, setting your chin down on top of his head as he runs his claws over the shiny knobs. He twists one, and a stream of water bursts down at the both of you—he yelps and jumps back, pushing you along with him.

“Fuck, that’s  _ cold,”  _ he complains, clicking irritably to himself. He fiddles with the knobs a little more, then sticks a hand back into the spray. You know it feels better to him when his fingers relax, his eyes going half-lidded with his contentment. “Mm—better. C’mon. Hop in.” 

He gets behind you and pushes you into the water (you snap your second eyelids shut to keep the spray out) and a pleasant little shiver runs up and down your spine. It’s just the perfect temperature—warm enough to make you want to stretch out and bask in it, but not so warm it stings. Your brother does spoil you so. You huddle up beneath the stream, humming happily to yourself as it soaks itself down into your hair and skin. You never fuckin’ ever thought you’d be missin’ ablutions so much, but this is motherfuckin’  _ fantastic.  _

Leastways it is until you notice your best friend ain’t joinin’ you. You glance over at him, cocking your head. “Bro? You gonna hop in and get your motherfuckin’ clean on too?”

“I will in a minute.” He slips away from the trap and towards the sink, instead, fiddling around with the electric razor. “Go ahead and soap yourself up. Fuck knows it’s gonna take more than one round to get you clean again.”

You obligingly reach for a bottle of—something. You squint hard at it, your English letters coming slow to the front of your mind. Shampoo, you think. You squirt some onto your palm—smells like sharp spice and musk and not at all like you, blegh—and begin scrubbing it vigorously into your hair. “And what all are you gettin’ up to over there whilst I soap, my miraculous brother?”

“Getting rid of this shit,” Karkat says, and then you hear the soft buzz of the razor and  _ holy shit Karkat’s hair is falling off— _

You can’t help the most ungainly squawk that leaves your throat, then, as you plunge back out of the water and flounder towards him. “Karkat! Brother, what in  _ hell? _ The motherfuck are you doin’?”

“I just told you.” He’s got his eyes all squinted up at the mirror in focus as he runs the razor over his scalp again, slicing off all his wiry topcoat. “I’m not even gonna bother trying to save this shit. It’s not worth the trouble. I’ll just—grow more. It’s fine. Get back in the trap before you drip your gross filth-juice everywhere.”

You chitter at him, high-pitched and scared and mighty unhappy, and he finally yields and turns to look at you. You are dripping wet and chilled but your best friend is chopping all of his hair from his head and he ain’t never done that before, not never—he likes his hair shaggy, always has, and now there’s big hunks missing and you don’t understand  _ why.  _ He could have saved it, could have just scrubbed it out like you’re doin’ yours, ain’t no reason for him to go and end a thing just because it’s gonna take a little work to get neat again—

“Shit, Gamzee, seriously.” He sighs at you, setting the razor aside and flicking little wiry black hairs off of his hand before reaching up to pap you. You lean hungrily into his touch, reaching out to trace your fingers along the thick hair he has left. “The hell are you freaking out for? It’s just hair. I’ve needed to trim it for forever—now’s a good a time as any.”

“But it’s—it’s—” Your mouth works helplessly, your pan struggling to find the words it wants but coming up mighty fucking empty. “It’s. Best friend. You can’t just shear it all off, you could—I didn’t—”

“Hey.” He leans up, bumping your forehead together. “It’s  _ okay.  _ I want it gone. I’ll grow it back out, I promise. I just—want to start fresh. You know?” His eyes meet yours, flinty and bright. “Nothing’s changing. Nothing that matters.”

You lean further into him, nuzzling up against one warm little cheek. “Yeah,” you say, reluctant, wrapping your arms around him and squeezing tight. It’s a shock to think of your brother without all his shaggy hair, but if that’s what he wants, if he’s all serious for it, then you will motherfuckin’ support. What the fuck else could you do, anyway? Besides, you guess he’ll be just as cute, no matter what. He’s your Karkat, after all. Cutest motherfucker in the whole entire universe. “Me too, bro.”

_ “You too  _ what?” he asks, rubbing a hand briskly along your back. 

“My hair. Wanna shear it off too.” You set your jaw, real determined. If he wants to start fresh, then you will, too. Motherfuckin’  _ solidarity.  _ (Besides, you don’t even want to  _ contemplate  _ the time and pain it would take to pick out all these motherfuckin’ mats you’ve got.) “C’mon—I’ll cut yours, ‘n then you can cut mine.”

Best friend hesitates, his fingers tight around the razor. “Are you—you’re sure? You’re not just doing this to make me feel better? Because seriously, I don’t care what I have to do—if you want to keep your hair, we’re keeping it.”

“It’ll grow back fast as shit,” you say, reaching forward. Set your fingers over his and he relaxes, lets you take the razor from him. “I don’t much mind losing it. Fresh starts sound real nice right about now, best friend. Let me have this one with you.”

Karkat is quiet, gettin’ his contemplate on as you turn him back around, get him facin’ the mirror again. You press one last kiss to his wiry hair, then flick the razor back on and get to trimmin’. You take care not to clip his skin or his downy little ears, cutting real slow-like around the edges of his hairline. Don’t take off  _ all  _ his hair, but you do a motherfuckin’ work on it, still. Clip off all his topcoat, and then a goodly bit of his undercoat, too, ‘till all that’s left is about an inch of the densest, darkest fuzz you  _ ever  _ did see. You rub the pads of your fingers over it—it’s soft and thick, with not a hint of that coarse texture you usually associate with pettin’ him. That’s an undercoat, for good and sure.

“You look motherfuckin’ sharp, best friend,” you tell him, sweeping his cut hair off and into the garbage can with a twinge of regret. He turns himself this way and that in the mirror. The cut makes his horns look a little longer, makes his jaw seem broader—older, you realize. Your brother is getting older right before your very eyes. Only about a half-sweep left until the both of you are seven, give or take a few perigees. “Mm—but still cute as shit.”

You kiss against his neck and he squirms, griping at you, but you see the little gleam of happiness in his eyes at your approval. “You next,” he bosses, twisting out of your grip and reaching for the razor. You obligingly lean your forearms on the sink, bend down so he can get a good view on the top of your head. He just pets you for a minute, real quiet. You’re about to talk at him, but he sets the razor to your hair before you can. Five minutes later and you’re as short-shorn as he is and feelin’ about ten pounds lighter. You shake your head, laughing. Sure does feel motherfuckin’ weird to lose hair what you been growin’ for a sweep or two. You turn around to grin at your brother and find him lookin’ at you with tears in his eyes, and that just shuts your mirth right down, fuckin’ hell.

“Hey, hey, no—” You stand up and draw him to you. He rests his forehead against your shoulder, sniffling. “It’s okay, little brother, shh. It’s alright, all’s well. What’s the matter, huh? What’s got you all twisted?”

“You,” he says, his voice accusatory—but his arms come up to hug you tight, tips of his claws pressing light against the damp skin of your back. “You, you big—big, stupid, romantic pussball. I can’t believe you. Fuck. Why the fuck do you put up with all this shit for me?”

“Because you’re my moirail, and it’s my goddamn duty, and you’re motherfuckin’ worth it.” You lean back a little, nudging his chin up so he’ll look at you. His eyes are still watery, but he ain’t cryin’ yet. You think you can pull him back—save the hard pilin’ for when you’re both clean and tucked up safe in your new home. “But it ain’t just for you, Karkat. I want this new life too, yeah? You keep forgettin’ that. This is for the both of us, brother.”

He brings a hand up and wipes at his eyes, swallowing hard before nodding his head down quick. “Yeah—yeah, okay.” He takes a deep, shuddery breath, and then offers you the shyest, most precious little smile. “Sorry. Fuck. C’mon—you’re gonna freeze your ass off.”

“Ain’t much of it  _ to  _ freeze, bro,” you tell him mournfully, peekin’ back there—wasn’t much to begin with, and six perigees of naught but rations ain’t done it no good. 

Karkat snorts, shoving you back into the trap. You squirm yourself happily into the water again, dragging him in with you. “Yeah, well, we’ll work on that. Three square meals a day will be  _ happening  _ from now on, motherfucker. Now hold still.”

He squirts more shampoo into his hands and sets about scrubbing it through what’s left of your hair—short as it is, it don’t take no time at all to clean. He rinses it, then scrubs conditioner in next and gets to work on your skin while it soaks itself in. Lathers up your whole body three times, and each time the rinse-water comes off a little clearer, until you feel scrubbed raw and cleaner than you’ve ever been, hell fucking  _ damn.  _

You get to work on him next, following the same motions through until his hair is clean and soft and not a single speck of filth remains on his precious skin. Sollux comes knocking before you’re done, and Karkat pads dripping wet over to the door. Comes back with a bottle of noxiously-scented shampoo, and you wrinkle your nose. 

“Flea shampoo—just to be sure they’re all gone,” he explains, dumping some into his palm and crooking a finger at you. You duck down and let him scrub it into your hair, then do the same for him. You scrub off your whole bodies with it, too, just in case. Once you’re finally,  _ finally  _ all good and clean, Karkat turns off the water and wraps you up in a towel. “There. Dry off and get dressed. Sollux brought some claw-clippers and fangpaste, too.”

You do as he tells you, drying yourself off quick and tugging on your new clean clothes—they’re Sollux’s, you think, a little too small on you and a little too big on your best friend. You get a pair of black sweatpants and a bright yellow sweater. Karkat gets himself a pair of yellow shorts and a gray t-shirt. Ain’t nary a sign to be found on them, which strikes you as odd, but you don’t question it too long. Who are you to say when and where a troll wears their sign?

Once the two of you are dressed, you clip your claws and brush your fangs and paint your face and then, at last, Karkat declares you ready to go. Only, he tarries a good little bit. He gets in front of the door and then he shifts his weight from foot to foot, swallowing hard enough for you to hear. You decide to help a brother out and reach forward, unlocking the door and swinging it open for him. He leans back against you, and you gotta admit—all this wide open, unfamiliar space is unnerving, after so long on the ship.

But a motherfucker’s gotta do what a motherfucker’s gotta do, and you’re chill with that. You loop your arm around his shoulders again and step forward, tugging him along with you. Sollux is waiting in the hallway, sat down next to the door and tapping away at his phone. He glances up at the two of you, then blinks real hard behind his glasses and looks again.

“The  _ fuck?”  _ he asks. “I leave you alone for twenty minutes and you somehow manage to shed most of your fucking  _ hair?  _ Seriously, I’d barely gotten used to you  _ with  _ hair. Now I’m gonna have to rearrange my entire mental image of you both—which I had  _ just  _ barely solidified, seriously, that’s so fucking  _ rude—” _

“Oh, shut up. Go bitch at someone who gives a shit, jerk.” Karkat kicks at Sollux’s leg—but real gentle-like. Friendly, for definite, and it’s cute to see your best friend gettin’ his friendship on with someone who’s not  _ you _ . Not that you don’t love your best friend’s friendship! No, you love that more than most anything. But still, it’s—good, you think, that the two of you can be friends with other people. You like friends a whole bunch. “Get up. Let’s go meet these shitlords so we can get some fucking  _ food.” _

“How base,” Sollux complains, but he pushes himself up anyway. “C’mon. Try to act like you know what manners are, would you? Piss anybody else off, but not these two.”

“Pissing people off is a talent  _ and  _ a hobby of mine.” Karkat examines his freshly-trimmed claws as the two of you follow Sollux down the hall—it’s long and empty, the walls lined with wooden doors leading to mysterious blocks. You  _ definitely  _ want to look inside of each one. You don’t. Motherfuckin’ misfortune. “You’re asking a lot, here.”

“Don’t I know it?” Sollux asks dryly, trotting down another set of stairs at the end of the hallway. You hesitate a little—the air here smells damper and sharper, with a hint of—

Blood. Yeah, motherfuck, that’s blood you’re smellin’. 

Karkat must notice it too, because he stops halfway down the stairs, bristling up—and would you look at that? His bristlin’ is actually pretty impressive, now you’ve cut most of the weight off his hair. “The hell does it smell like that for?” he demands, his body a little whiplash of tension. 

“Inquisition,” Sollux says, flicking an ear back at the both of you. “It’s not exactly the world’s cleanest job. It’s safe enough for us, though. Come on. Don’t be such a fuckin’ sissy.” 

Best friend makes an angry little spitting sound but jogs down after Sollux, his toeclaws clicking on the stone steps. You follow close behind him, brushing your fingertips along the wall. The blood-smell doesn’t bother you much, though you would that it didn’t make your brother so uncomfortable. Once the two of you are off the stairs, you drape your arm around his little shoulders again, nuzzling into his shorn hair.

Sollux guides you both down another hallway, pausing in front of a dark wooden door. You can hear his teeth grind nervously, and then he fixes you both with those bitchin’ bright eyes. “Ready?”

“You bet, bro,” you say, offering him a grin to try and ease his tension—it don’t work. “Let’s get our meet on so we can get our eat on, you feel me?”

Karkat grumbles at your rhymin’, but Sollux raps his knuckles against the door before he can complain. You hear the screech of chair legs against the floor, and then the thump of heavy boots. You chew your lower lip a tad nervously—you ain’t never met an adult before, not in real life. Seen ‘em on your schoolfeeds and movies, but—well. They can’t really  _ kill  _ you in your schoolfeeds and movies, can they?

Your best friend positions himself in front of you, gettin’ his protect on, and you’re chill with that. This way you can make sure nothin’ hurts him from behind, and you can lash your claws right over his head if anything threatens his front. The doorknob rattles, the door swings inwards, and you get your first eyeful of an adult troll.

She’s big. Not as big as you thought she’d be, but sure as hell bigger than you. Her head nearly reaches the doorframe, and she’s gotta duck to fit her horns under it. Her skin is adult-dark, instead of your pale-ass wiggler gray, and her hair is a wild mane of black around her face, spilling down her back. She’s got ratty little half-fins in front of her ears, flushed purple, and her fangs are big and sleek and white—must be a real fresh set. She ain’t an old adult, not by far. Her paint is smooth and sharp, too, and she flashes you a big grin when she sees you.

You’re—not real sure whether she means it friendly or not.

“Well, hey there, wigglers,” she says, and her voice is a low, rough rumble. The sclera of her eyes are nice and pale yellow, her irises flushed deep purple. She licks her teeth, and you kinda feel like she’s thinking about eating you. “Come on in. We’ve been waiting a good long time for you.”

She steps back, sweeps her arm aside to invite you in. Sollux slinks forward first, his ears drooping and his head lowered. Karkat follows reluctantly after him, watching the adult in his peripheral, and you keep close to him as you slip inside. The block is fair big—there’s a large desk sitting near the back of it and a little dark-skinned human sitting behind it. He’s got a sleek black trenchcoat on, along with a funny little hat. One of his eyes has a wrinkled, pale scar over the top of it. 

“Karkat Vantas and Gamzee Makara, I presume?” he asks, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on the desk. He’s speakin’ Alternian, for which you’re grateful—and he speaks it quite fluently, as a matter of fact. The vowels are a little long, his accent too smooth and too soft, but you recognize each and every word he speaks. 

“Right,” Karkat says, nodding stiff and sharp. You can see him struggling to pay attention to this soft, hornless little man instead of the adult troll next to you. “And you are?”

“She’s Nuodel Gorroe, and I’m Jack Noir.” The human extends his hand, and you stare at it. He’s got blunt, colorless little claws, and his palm looks soft the whole way through—not even a hint of a pawpad. “It’s human custom to shake hands when you meet someone. You’d best learn now. Come here.”

Karkat tentatively steps forward, and Noir reaches out and takes hold of his hand. You shift your weight anxiously, but all he does is—give it a little shake, and then let it go. He does the same to you, and yep—his palms are soft all through. You take care not to twitch your claws, lest you accidentally rend his thin skin. 

“Good,” Noir says, once he’s done his weird human hand custom. “Captor, you’re dismissed. Wait outside to take them to the medics’ office once we’re done here.”

“Got it.” Sollux dips his head, then steps back out of the office. The door clicks behind him, and you feel a little bit—lost. Adrift. You huddle closer to Karkat. 

“Now, then. I know you both must be confused and tired, so I won’t keep you long.” Noir sits back in his chair, folding his hands across his chest. “If I understand Captor correctly, the two of you have agreed to work for me in exchange for food and shelter. Is that correct?”

“It is,” Karkat says. His voice is smooth as he can make it, but there’s still a tremble in his undertone. You want to pet him. You resist the urge.

Noir nods. “Good. We can discuss the details of your jobs another time. For now, you only need to know our house rules. The two of you will be receiving most of your vaccinations tonight, and the remainder next week—”

You shudder at the reminder, biting the inside of your cheek. 

“—and you will remain in the base for the required two-week incubation period. This is for both your safety and the safety of others. Human diseases don’t interact well with troll bodies. You will be provided with a shared respiteblock, three meals a day, access to your suite ablutions block for your hygiene needs, and access to our training blocks. You will receive a hundred-dollar stipend each month to purchase anything else you may need or want.”

That sounds—pretty motherfuckin’ good, actually. You’re not quite sure how much a hundred dollars is, compared to caegars, but you see Karkat’s ears perk up a little.

“While you work with us, you will not own, and you especially will not  _ wear _ , anything with your sign on it. It makes it too easy for government officials to identify you, and to discover that you are, in fact, illegal immigrants. Owning items in your blood color is fine, however. You will treat all other trolls and humans on this base with the appropriate respect and civility. Fights are not allowed unless they receive prior approval from Nuodel or myself.”

“What about self defense?” your best friend asks, his voice wary.

“It should be, for the most part, unnecessary. Everyone else here follows the same rules as you do—no fighting. You are, of course, allowed to defend yourselves if it does become necessary, but I expect to be provided with proof that you weren’t the ones who initiated the fight. Furthermore, you will not pester the adults. You would be wise not to pester  _ anyone,  _ but especially not adult trolls. If you do, you can hardly expect them not to retaliate, and any fight that occurs because of your antagonizing will be considered your fault. 

“Your territory and territorial marking will be limited to your block and your block only. We do not tolerate territorial disputes over public areas. If you find it necessary to have a larger territory, come to me and we’ll discuss it. Makara, as a subjugglator, you have special rights and privileges here. You may command any lowblood you wish to, though it would be wise for you to avoid commanding another subjugglator’s quadrants. Furthermore, you may not attempt to assert your authority over another subjugglator without our approval. Is that clear?”

“Uh—sure, bro,” you say, although you have little inclination to do any commanding or asserting of any kind. “Whatever you want is motherfuckin’ chill with me.”

“As for you, Vantas—” Noir’s eyes flick over to your tiny moirail. “You should be careful.”

That—sounds a little bit like a threat. You set your chin down between Karkat’s horns. Lick your teeth, show ‘em off to let that human brother know you won’t take kindly to your littlest brother being threatened so. Human doesn’t seem to notice, though—if he does, he brushes you off all unaffected.

“Your blood color makes you an anomaly,” Noir continues, and Karkat tenses up. Stops breathing. You wind your arms around his waist and hold him close, your teeth aching in your jaw. “I don’t know how the other trolls will react if they discover that you’re a mutant. It would be better for you to keep that a secret for as long as possible, naturally—but if you are discovered, rest assured, we won’t let you be harmed. The moirails of our subjugglators are highly respected here.”

“How— _ the fuck—”  _ Karkat starts, his voice a tiny shaking rasp, “do you know about my blood color?”

“Well, that’s an easy enough question,” Nuodel says, and you jump—you’d almost forgotten she was there, quiet as she was. You near about crush Karkat to your chest. Wish to death you could pull him inside yourself, shield him with blood and flesh and bone. He’s trembling against you. “Your little friend told us—Captor.”

Karkat sucks in a breath, and you hear it rattle over a soft little growl.

“Aw, don’t be too mad at him, wiggler.” Nuodel prowls around you, her eyes raking sharp over your skin. You flatten your ears warningly at her. Adult or not, you’d fucking slaughter her for your palemate’s safety. “He sure is a dumbass, but he did it for you—I mean, for himself, mostly, but also for you, I think. We found out he’d hacked that little ship of yours and we were  _ righteously  _ fuckin’ pissed. But he offered us some incentive, he did.”

“He told you. He fucking—he  _ told  _ you—that fucking  _ bastard—”  _ Karkat’s breath whistles through his teeth, his hands curving claws at his sides.

“So he did. We were gonna kill him, see—but he told us he’d bring us a mutant and a subjugglator,” Nuodel says. “And so he did. He saved himself, and he saved the both of you, too. You should be grateful, little mutant wiggler.”

“Grateful,” Karkat spits, and he’s trembling not with fear anymore, you realize, but with rage. You breathe in and out, nice and slow and deep—can’t quite shoosh him, as you know he does hate things like when he’s trying to look tough, but you can still do this for him. You just—breathe. “Yeah. Yeah,  _ grateful.” _

Nuodel offers him a wicked slice of a grin. “Ah, but it’s up to you, I suppose. Now go on, you two. Get outta here. We’re done for now. We’ll talk again in a few nights—get your jobs all sorted. We gotta talk about that sopor problem of yours, too, Makara.”

You kinda—bob your head in agreement, as much as you can without moving your head from between Karkat’s horns. “You got it, sister.”

“And mind what I said,” Noir adds, as Karkat storms towards the door, dragging you along with him. “I don’t care how mad you are at Captor—there is to be  _ no  _ fighting.”

You think Karkat’s gonna slam the door behind him—but he seems to think better of it at the last second, closing it gentle instead. Sollux is leaning against the wall across from you, and his head jumps up when he hears you, ears flicking forward all interested and friendly-like. “Hey,” he says, his voice smooth and unbothered. You’re cringing for him already. “How’d it go?”

“How did it  _ go?”  _ Karkat demands, his voice an awful, raspy hiss. He shakes you off of him and storms forward, leaning up on his toes to shove his face into Sollux’s, baring his little teeth. “You repulsive fucking bilgespewer—I can’t believe I actually  _ trusted  _ you. God, fuck, I must be denser than a goddamn superheated neutron star! I would have been better off trusting the Grand Highblood himself—at least he would have had the decency to cull me outright, instead of spreading my secrets behind my back like the fucking drama butter on world’s shittiest soap opera!”

“Ah.” Sollux’s ears flatten, but to his credit, he doesn’t snarl back at your brother. “They told you. KK—”

“Fuck yeah, they told me! God knows you weren’t going to, you selfish piece of festering, petulant garbage—what? Were you just going to keep your mouth shut and hope I never found out? Let me live my life in  _ ignorance,  _ hoping I never found out about your shitty secrets? You  _ told  _ them, Sollux! I can’t fucking believe you. I  _ trusted  _ you, I—” Karkat’s voice breaks, his shoulders slumping for the briefest of seconds. “I thought you were my friend. Goddamnit. God fucking damnit.”

“KK, listen, I know—I know I fucked up, just let me explain—”

“No!” Karkat’s shoulders stiffen again, puffing his whole little self up with rage. You don’t stop him—it’s not like Sollux doesn’t deserve it, anyway, and you know it’ll eat your little brother up inside if he doesn’t express it. Might be  _ better  _ ways to express it, sure, but—you’ll work on that later, you guess. “You don’t  _ get  _ to explain. I don’t want to hear it, you goddamned asshole. But I will say thanks for one thing—” He jabs a finger into Sollux’s chest, a growl rattling in his throat. “You’ve reminded me of a valuable lesson, Captor. Never trust  _ any-fucking-body,  _ because the second it gives them an advantage, they’ll turn on you like the filthy, self-serving fucking traitors they are.”

Sollux withers in front of your eyes, shrinking down into himself. His chest rises and falls quick and uneven. His hands curl into fists at his sides. “They were going to kill me, they were gonna torture me and kill me and—”

“Yeah, well, maybe they should’ve,” Karkat snaps, and then all three of you just kinda—stop. That was. That was a little far. You know that, and you know  _ Karkat  _ knows that. He opens his mouth again, and for a second you’re relieved—he’s gonna apologize. Your best friend knows better than to say cruel things like that; his mouth just runs away with him sometimes. And then he—doesn’t. Doesn’t apologize. You see his eyes grow cold, his jaw set, those walls of his slammin’ themselves back up. “Whatever. Forget it. Just take us to the medics’ office already.”

“Yeah.” Sollux’s voice is quiet, flat. Your heart hurts. This isn’t what having friends is supposed to be like, you think. “Come on.”

He leads you both farther down the hallway, to a door with a red cross painted over it. Pushes the door open for you and talks briefly to another human inside—this one dressed in sharp blue clothing, their skin paler than Noir’s. Then Sollux turns back to the two of you. Won’t meet Karkat’s eyes as he speaks. “This is one of our medics. She’ll help you with everything you need and then show you to the kitchen.”

Karkat nods sharply, his lips pressed into a thin line. 

“Okay, Solbro,” you say, your voice a little quieter than usual. You’re—not sure if you’re mad at him or not. You sure ain’t as mad as your best friend is. “Thanks. We’ll—see you around?”

“Yeah,” Sollux says, slipping past you and back into the hallway. “See you.”

The door swings shut behind him, leaving you alone with the human. She stands up once he’s gone, clapping her hands together and offering you both a tight little smile. “Alrighty, then, fellas,” she says. She’s speakin’ English, unlike Noir, so you have to work to understand her. “Let’s get to work. You guys have got a lot of catching up to do, shot-wise. We’ll give you both a quick check-up, and then we’ll start you off with seven shots today, and five more in a week. We’ll give you a DTaP, Hib, HPV, MMR, varicella, HepA and HepB today.”

Woah. So you, uh. You have  _ no  _ idea what she just said. Glancing sideways at your brother, you get your guess on that he doesn’t know, either. She’s already moving, though, turning away from you and fussing over lots of little equipment. You inch closer to your best friend, threading your fingers through his. Fear is starting to coil up in your guts again, thinking on shots, and you do dearly wish you’d been able to have a pie just before all this.

“Hey,” Karkat says in Alternian, his voice quiet. You glance over at him, and he’s watching you closely. “It’s okay. I’ll go first, alright? Remember what I said.” He squeezes your hand. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”

And when your brother does go and say something like that, how can you fathom feeling so afraid? He has enough courage for the both of you. You offer him your best smile, leaning down and bonking your foreheads together affectionately. “Right back atcha, little brother,” you tell him. “You say the word and I’ll get us both out of here.”

Karkat hums softly at you, leaning up on his toes to press against you—and then the human turns back around, clapping her hands together loudly enough to make you both jump apart. “Right! We’re all set up. Who’s going first?”

Your best friend steps forward, his little chin raised and his shoulders straight. “I will,” he says, his English warbling some—but it must be good enough to understand, because the human nods at him and pats the high metal table next to her. 

“Hop on up here, then. Just sit and relax and we’ll get you done as quick as we can. Captor said you were probably starving.” 

Your stomach rumbles in hearty agreement at  _ that  _ statement. Karkat springs up onto the table and sits, his legs dangling over the edge and his hands folded neatly in his lap. The human holds a clipboard against one arm, scribbling across a piece of paper before pulling on a pair of blue gloves. “So—Karkat Vantas, correct?” she asks, and Karkat nods. “Male, six and a half sweeps old, no formal hemocaste.” Karkat flinches at that last bit but nods again, biting his lip. “Awesome. I’m just going to check a few of your vitals first—can you sit up straight and breathe deeply for me?”

Karkat sits up as straight as he can, his teeth still worrying at his bottom lip. You want badly to soothe him, but you think the human may not very well approve of that. She hooks a strange device up to her ears and runs the other end of it—an odd, circular metal disk—across Karkat’s chest and back as he breathes. She wraps a fabric cuff around his bicep next, pumping it up and pressing the metal disk to his elbow as it deflates. “Heart and lungs sound great, and your pulse and blood pressure are just about in the healthy range for an oliveblood or a yellowblood—I’m not sure what would be considered healthy for your hemocaste, exactly, but I wouldn’t be too concerned with those results.”

“How do you tell all that?” you ask, curiosity pricking sharp at you. “From that little disc? How’s that work?”

The human grins at you, all flat white teeth and pale gums. “It’s a stethoscope. It lets me hear things you wouldn’t normally be able to hear very well—like a heartbeat, or blood in an artery. Here, you wanna try?” She wipes the earpieces down, offering them to you before glancing at Karkat. “If that’s alright with you, Karkat.”

Karkat rolls his eyes fondly. “Whatever makes him happy, I suppose.”

You beam at him and settle the earpieces into your ears—feels fuckin’ weird, makes everything sound muffled and strange, but then the human puts the disc on Karkat’s chest and— _ woah.  _ Your eyes widen, your jaw loosening. You can hear a low, quick  _ ba-dump, ba-dump  _ pounding away beneath your best friend’s skin. His heart. That’s your best friend’s  _ heart,  _ and goddamn if there ain’t a prettier sound in the universe. 

“Motherfuck,” you breathe. “Karkat. Brother. That is the  _ coolest fucking thing—” _

Karkat snorts, and you hear his breath rushing through his lungs as he does. “Yeah, whatever, you dumb fuck.” His voice rumbles through your ears, through your skull, bordering on the verge of too loud. “You say that about anything that manages to catch your attention for more than two seconds at a time.”

“Here,” the human says, gently taking the disc from Karkat’s chest. “Try yours.” She sets it on your own chest, and  _ this is so motherfucking cool holy fuck.  _ You can hear your own heart thudding away beneath your sternum—it’s slower than Karkat’s. Louder. The human grins at you. “You can play with that, if you want, while I finish up your buddy here.”

You nod earnestly, running the little disc across your ribs and stomach (you can hear the  _ gurgles)  _ as she examines Karkat’s eyes and ears and mouth with a little light. She frowns when she sees the little red bumps all over his feet and legs and ears, and you take the earpieces of the stethoscope out so you can hear what she says. “These look like flea bites, huh? Do they itch?”

“They are flea bites,” Karkat tells her. “And—I mean, yeah. That’s the idea.”

“Fair enough.” The human chuckles, moving over to a cabinet and pulling down a small bottle. She sets it down on the table next to Karkat. “Here’s some cream—it should help them stop itching and heal up quicker. Just apply it a couple of times every day, okay? I’m gonna double-check your hair just to make sure you don’t still have any of the little critters, too.”

Once she’s done shifting through your brother’s dense undercoat, she pronounces him fine and healthy, which pleases you to no end. “We’ll get your weight and height after your shots, and we’ll have to send some tests off to the lab, but your prelims look great. You’re a little bonier than I’d like to see, definitely malnourished, and the fleabites are a problem—but other than that, you’re in good condition, after being on a ship for six months.”

“Fantastic,” Karkat says, his voice dry, but you can see a glimmer of relief in his eyes. “So—shots now?”

“Shots now,” the human agrees. “I’m gonna draw a little vial of your blood first, though, to send off to our lab for testing. It’s regulation only, and your identity will remain anonymous to everyone but me—so you don’t have to worry about anyone finding out you’re a mutant.”

Karkat still doesn’t look very comfortable with the idea, but he sits still as she wipes a small square cloth over his elbow and ties a band around his upper arm. You shift nervously, drifting over to stand by the table so you can watch more closely. She brings a needle over to him, and you hear his breath change—deeper, slower, purposefully measured as she slides the needle beneath his skin. His blood floods out of him almost immediately, filling up the little tube connected to the needle, and you grind your teeth anxiously.

“Hush,” he scolds you, clicking his teeth. “It doesn’t even hurt, you big grub. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about at all—just a little jab and then it’s done,” the human agrees cheerfully, removing the needle once the vial is full and taping a cottonball over the tiny hole in the crook of Karkat’s elbow. “Good job, Karkat. Just a few more tiny jabs like that and you’ll be all done.”

She has Karkat roll up his shirtsleeves and then scrubs down both of his shoulders and biceps with another damp pad. It smells sharp—like disinfectant, you think. Once she’s done that, she then proceeds to jab your brother seven times with seven different needles. He doesn’t flinch for a single one, though you hear his breath hitch a little, and his legs shift uncomfortably when she presses the plungers down. She plasters him up with band-aids once she’s done, then steps back and grins at him.

“There! All done,” she says, peeling off her gloves and jotting something down on her papers. After, she hands Karkat a little cup. “If you’ll just go back behind that curtain and pee in this cup, I’ll start checking Gamzee’s vitals.”

Karkat blinks at her a minute, staring at the little cup. You think maybe he’s trying to re-translate. “You want me to—pee? In the cup?”

“Yep,” the human says, nodding and patting the table. “Hop on up here, Gamzee. I promise I won’t assault you with any needles until your moirail is back.”

Karkat wanders off in the direction of the curtain, little cup held in his hand, and  _ gee,  _ humans are weird fucks. But hey, if they want your piss, then you guess they’ll have it. It’s a small price to pay, for food and shelter—it’s not like you need it, anyway. Still, you gotta giggle a little bit as you hop up on the table, though you try your best to stop once the human starts listenin’ to your chest.

The human runs through all the same tests with you as she did with Karkat and pronounces you in fine health, too, save for your fleabites and your general scrawniness. She says the sopor’s fucking with your reaction times and sensory perception, but hell, that ain’t nothin’ you didn’t already know. Karkat returns shortly, his little pee-cup held tentatively in one hand, and you fall back to giggling. Most mirthful motherfuckin’ joke, that’s for sure—especially that grouchy expression on his cute-ass face when he glares at you. 

Oh, but  _ then  _ the little human pulls out her  _ needles,  _ and your mirth does rightly flee you.

“Can I sit up here with him?” Karkat asks, setting his pee-cup down on the table and heading towards you. “He’s—he doesn’t like needles.”

“Sure thing, little guy. He’s not gonna try to bite my head off or anything, right?” She looks a little warily at you, and something flinches back in your chest. She did never look at  _ Karkat  _ that way. It makes you feel—bad. Like you’re bad. 

“No,” Karkat says, scowling and patting your hand gently. “No way.”

That—makes you feel a little bit better, yeah.

The human has you take off your sweater so she can rub down your elbow with one of those disinfectant-pads and then tie the band around your arm. You feel your breathing goin’ choppy already, and Karkat holds your free hand tightly. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, slipping back into the comforting clicks and rattles of your native language. “It’s okay, shhh. It doesn’t hurt that badly, I promise.”

And you—trust him, you do, but you remember—

You remember being a sweep and a half old, just barely pupated. You remember the old goat holding you down with one great big hoof, weight sinking down on your back and the rough keratin of his hoof scraping soft new wiggler skin from your shoulders and sides. You remember him growlin’ at you to hold still as the medidrone came and jabbed you again and again with those goddamned  _ shots,  _ deaf to your wails. Didn’t hurt that bad, really. You know it didn’t. But you were so— _ motherfucking— _ helpless.

You remember the old goat letting you up, once it was over. You remember him giving your back a cursory lick with that rough, cold tongue, cleaning up the bloody scrapes he’d left across your skin. You remember reaching to him for comfort, aching to curl up close to his damp fur and broad chest, aching for him to make everything alright again. 

You remember him turning away from you. You remember him leaving.

That is what you remember, as this human slides her needle under your skin and spills your blood into her vial. You don’t snarl at her purposeful—don’t even realize you’re makin’ the sound until she jumps back from you, her eyes wide and hands tense. Karkat is all over you, then, climbing into your lap, his warm little hands touching your face and drawing you back into yourself. But you aren’t—you aren’t  _ mad.  _ You aren’t trying to threaten her. You. Think. 

Fuck, you don’t know what that was.

“Shh, shh-shh-shh, shoosh, Gamzee,” Karkat murmurs, pressing his forehead to yours, cupping your face in his hands. “It’s okay, it’s alright. You’re alright. You’re safe—I told you, jackass, I’m not gonna let her hurt you. You don’t have to be scared, you don’t have to be angry. I’m here. I’ll keep you safe.”

“Not angry,” you say, fumbling to try and explain yourself. “Not angry, I didn’t—I didn’t mean to sound angry, I wasn’t thinking—didn’t even get the motherfucking thought on to do like that, I’m sorry—”

You try to bring your hand up to hold Karkat, but he pins your forearm to the table. “Don’t move,” he orders, butting his head against yours. “The needle’s still in your arm, dumbass. Are you gonna let her finish or are you gonna get angry again?”

“I didn’t—didn’t mean to do that, motherfucker,” you insist. It’s important to you that he knows, that he acknowledges. It is motherfucking  _ vital.  _ “I wasn’t gonna hurt her, fuck, I swear not.”

“I know,” Karkat says, but there’s a wary little gleam in his eyes, and you wonder if he does. “I know, shoosh. You’re just scared, huh?”

You nod earnestly, pushing your face into his hands and squeezing your eyes shut. “Don’t leave, best friend. Don’t leave, you can’t motherfucking leave, don’t—don’t, fuck, don’t—”

“Never,” Karkat says, his voice vehement, his fingers curling possessively behind your jaw. “Never. I would never leave you, not for anything, not unless you told me to. I’m  _ here.”  _ He leans his forehead against yours again. “I’m here, you pitiable fucking dumbass, and I’m not going anywhere. Now sit still, shut up, and let her finish stabbing you.”

And you, oh, you are helpless all over again. You are as helpless to this hot-blooded, hard-headed boy as you ever were to the old goat—fuck, more so. His soft little hands hold you as steady as that heavy hoof ever did and then some. He need not flay the skin from your back to keep you still—he need only flay the skin from your soul, and  _ fuck,  _ but he has done that a million times over already.

You are so helpless, but—but he is here, he does not turn from you, and you will try to be unafraid for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more fabulous [ art ](https://ceabu.tumblr.com/post/185747106411/and-another-fanart-for-parsnipit-great) by @ceabu!! the boyos with their new haircuts aaa!! <33


	13. weirdly-enthusiastic-moirail-corralling-duties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: gross alternian castism (i.e. racism, more or less), mentions of blood/violence
> 
> chapter track: "alien boy" by oliver tree

Everyone survives the ordeal that is giving Gamzee his shots, to your much-abounding relief. The medic gives you both a clean bill of health, save for your fleabites and malnutrition, and then escorts you to the kitchen. You are— _ so— _ motherfucking hungry. The two of you raid the thermal hull as soon as the medic leaves, pulling out packets of ground meat and digging into them just as they are, raw and cold. You’re not quite sure what kind of meat you’re eating, but it tastes similar to the moobeasts on Alternia—softer, though, and fattier. Ordinarily, you’re not sure you’d be impressed, but after perigees of rations? This the best thing you have ever eaten, ever.

Once the two of you have downed a packet each and the burning edge of your hunger is sated, you lick your claws clean and look for something you actually have the will to cook. “The fuck do you wanna eat?” you ask Gamzee, rifling through the cabinets. This place is  _ stocked.  _ “Looks like they have a little bit of everything.”

“Mm, whatever you want is chill with me, palest,” Gamzee says. He’s slouched over the table, eyes half-lidded and content as he finishes licking gaudy red beast-blood off of his fangs. “Been a while since we had any motherfuckin’ fresh fruits or veggies, though.”

Usually you’re not a big fan of fruits and vegetables, though you know they’re necessary (in mercifully small amounts) for a healthy diet. But right now, they sound goddamn fucking  _ appealing.  _ You find a bowl of random fruit on one of the counters and pluck an orange out, tossing it in Gamzee’s direction. You grab another one for yourself, peeling it carelessly with your claws as you glance through the fridge for vegetables. You find a big, round, green—something. The letters on the package inform you that it’s lettuce. Huh. You’ve never had that before. Must be an Earth thing. 

You take a seat at the table, taking the time to chomp at your orange slices as you unwrap the lettuce. The juice bursts brightly across your tongue, sweet-sour and sharp and  _ holy fuck  _ that’s good. Across from you, Gamzee bites into his orange whole (fucking heathen) and makes an obscene sound of pleasure. You scarf the rest of your orange down before tearing off a leaf of the lettuce. “Here,” you say, through a mouthful of pulp—fuck manners, you’re  _ hungry _ . “Earth veg’able.”

Gamzee swallows what’s left of his orange whole, then tears into the pale green leaf. He doesn’t bother chewing—just bobs his head back, gulping it down in a single motion, too. You eat more slowly, chewing curiously at the leaf. It tastes like water, mostly. Like crunchy water. It’s not  _ bad.  _ Not exactly a delicacy, but you don’t mind it. Between the two of you, you finish off the whole—roll? ball? lump?—of lettuce in minutes. 

It’s amazing what ablutions and a good meal can do for a bad mood, honestly. You sit back in your chair, sighing happily and stretching yourself out. The only thing that grates against you right now is the thought of Sollux. That fucker. That cheap, sell-out, traitorous  _ swine.  _ You should never have told him your blood color in the first place. It was the rash decision of a naïve five-sweeper, and oh  _ boy,  _ do you fucking regret it.

Still. You guess the outcome could’ve been worse. You’re alive, aren’t you?

“Best friend?” Gamzee asks, yawning widely at you. “You good?”

“Yeah. I’m good.” You set your chin on the table, fighting the urge to yawn back at him. You are—tired, yeah. Fucking exhausted and ready for this night to be over already. 

“What we gonna do now?”

“Mm—we should find our block. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do that,” you mutter. Gamzee rests his chin on the table across from you, studying you sleepily. You study him back. He looks as weary as you do, with dark bags under his eyes and a faint tremor in his ears. You should—yeah. You should probably get him some more sopor, soon.

“We could ask Sollux,” Gamzee offers. You scowl at him. The last thing you want to do is talk to that yellow-bellied  _ bitch.  _ “Ooor not. We could go back to the medics’ office and ask that human.”

“Yeah. I guess so.” You’d rather not bother her too much—human or not, you still don’t trust adults—but you don’t see what choice you have. You  _ definitely  _ don’t want to go talk to Noir or Nuodel again, but you guess the medic was okay. You push yourself to your feet, sighing. “Let’s go.”

Gamzee moves to stand up and then pauses, an ear flicking back towards the kitchen entryway. You pause, too, pricking your ears until you hear the sound of approaching footsteps. You tense, your claws digging into the back of your chair. Living with Gamzee was one thing, but living in what is  _ basically  _ a communal hivestem?

Ugh. 

“—and she said that would be awesome, so I’m gonna go over to Tontorak South tomorrow night,” a high-pitched, raspy voice says enthusiastically. It’s speaking fluent, unaccented Alternian—trolls, then, you assume. “I think it’ll help her cheer up. She’s been sicker than usual the last few days, and it’s making her sad.”

“Well, that  _ is  _ sensible.” A second voice, deeper and quieter. “Lowbloods are delicate. It’s both natural and appropriate that they have an accurate perception of their inevitable mortality, though I can’t imagine that that is a cheerful knowledge to acquire.”

“Mm. I guess,” the first voice says, though it sounds unconvinced. “But don’t you—”

Both the voices and the footsteps come to a halt as they reach the kitchen and you get your first glimpse of the speakers. They’re both wigglers (thank god) who look to be around your age. The first one is small, especially compared to her hulking companion. She’s got short, frizzy hair trapped beneath a freakish blue hat that fits neatly around her horns. Her eyes widen when they land on you, her—tail? what the fuck is that a  _ tail?— _ swishing behind her. 

“Oh, hi there _ — _ I don’t recognize you two,” she says, flicking her ears in your direction—at least you  _ think  _ she does. They’re a little bit trapped, underneath her hat, but you see a flicker of movement beneath the fabric. “You must be new, right?”

Gamzee relaxes as soon as he hears the friendly tone in her voice, flicking his ears back at her and slouching in his chair again because he has no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. “Hey there, sister. New we are. It’s nice to meet you,” he says, offering her a cautious, hopeful little smile.

“Nepeta, it’s inappropriate to talk so informally with strangers—especially when you don’t know their caste,” the bigger troll chastises. He’s a little shorter than Gamzee, but he’s wider and more densely muscled. One of his horns is broken, and the other is short and arrow-shaped. A pair of broken sunglasses rest over his eyes. Color you fucking intimidated. “My apologies to the both of you. It  _ is _ a pleasure to meet you, however. My name is Equius Zahhak, and this is my moirail, Nepeta Leijon.”

“What’re your names?” Nepeta asks, leaning forward to peer curiously at Gamzee, who looks delighted with the attention. He’s practically preening, the fucker. “Where’d you come fur-om?”

“I’m Gamzee Makara, and this is my very own moirail, Karkat Vantas,” Gamzee says, because of course he has to give out any and all information requested of him, never mind if it’s to mere strangers. God, you have no idea how he’s survived this long. “We came from Alternia—just got off the ship this evenin’, actually.”

“Wow, really?” Nepeta’s tail swishes  _ more,  _ and you are struck with the sudden and absurd urge to pounce on it. This is stupid. She’s stupid. You needed all of two minutes to decide that. “You must be tired. That was a loooong trip—I remember ours was, anyway.”

“Oh, hell yeah it was,” Gamzee agrees adamantly, nodding so fast you’re surprised his head doesn’t pop off and roll away. “Long and motherfuckin’  _ boring.  _ But we’re here now, with all this food and soap and safety and shit, so it must’ve been worth it.”

“That’s a good attitude to have, mister.” Nepeta stands back, her hands on her hips. “I like an optimist. Hey, do you want to be fur-iends?”

_ “Fuck  _ yeah.”

You groan and bury your face in your hands. Across from you, you see Equius wilt slightly. Well. At least you’re not alone in your weirdly-enthusiastic-moirail-corralling-duties. “Okay, okay, cool, great, friends and shit,” you say, pushing your chair back against the table. “In that case, can you do us a favor? We still need to find our block, and we don’t even know where to begin looking.”

“Shit, yeah, that’s right.” Gamzee stands up slowly, unfolding his whole gangly self and pushing his chair in. “It would be a bitchin’ nice thing to get all cozied up in a ‘coon for a time—but after we’ve done slept, we oughta hang out together, sister.”

“Sounds like a purr-fect plan, new fur-iend. C’mon, this way,” Nepeta agrees, reaching out and grabbing Gamzee’s sleeve. She tugs him along out of the kitchen, and he reaches back and makes an absolutely pathetic grabby hand at you. You sigh—you are the most put-upon moirail, it’s you—and head after them, falling into step with Equius as the two of you follow after your exuberant palemates.

“So,” Equius says, then pauses and clears his throat. Oh, god, this is already awkward. Fuck. You can’t handle awkward. It makes you want to curl up like an ugly fucking dung beetle and scurry into your filthy mess of a home and—regurgitate shit or whatever dung beetles do, seriously—“Karkat Vantas, was it? Is your moirail always this—abrasive?”

Oh no he did  _ not.  _ You are going to spit dung beetle shit all  _ over  _ this musclehead if he insults your Gamzee. “Abrasive?” you demand, your eyes narrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean, huh?”

“Ah—I mean no offense, of course,” Equius adds hastily, and you eyeball him as poisonously as you can. “Only, his vocabulary  _ is _ quite brash, and he doesn’t conduct himself in a particularly respectful manner, and—”

“I have respectful manners, bro, promise,” Gamzee protests mournfully, glancing over his shoulder—you see Nepeta toss a disappointed look in Equius’ direction and like her a little bit better. A  _ very  _ little bit. “Karkat’s always gettin’ onto me about ‘em—they’ve been gettin’ motherfucking polished. We should eat together sometime and I’ll show you.”

“Equius, you need to be nicer,” Nepeta adds, frowning. “If you’re rude to our new fur-iends then they aren’t gonna want to hang out with us.”

“Well, we shouldn’t be _ hanging out  _ with what are  _ clearly  _ the lower classes, Nepeta.” Equius folds his arms across his chest, a muscle in his jaw twitching. You claws curl. “Their conduct is atrocious. It will rub off on you, and I won’t have my moirail being corrupted by their immoral influence.”

“Don’t take it purr-sonally,” Nepeta advises, glancing back up at Gamzee. “He’s like this with ever-fur-yone. We’re working on it.”

“Well work on it a little faster,” you snap, glowering at Equius and stomping forward to grab Gamzee’s hand, squeezing it tightly.  _ Yes,  _ your moirail has atrocious conduct, but  _ nobody else  _ gets to comment on it or you’ll snap their fucking  _ spine _ . “You shouldn’t let your moirail run around tearing down everyone he meets. Even barkbeast owners know better.”

“Hey, no, it’s okay, best friend.” Gamzee leans down, bumping his forehead against yours. “No harm done. Let’s just chill a piece, alright? We ain’t got no need to bicker with what friends we just made.” He glances back at Nepeta. “My apologies for him, too, sister—he’s real tired, you know—”

“Don’t apologize for me, you asshole,” you hiss, flattening your ears. “Don’t you  _ even.”  _

“Well, you ain’t gonna be apologizing for yourself, now, are you?” Gamzee demands, glaring at you—well.  _ Glaring  _ is maybe too strong of a word. He kinda just—sticks his lower lip out and pouts at you, really, but you get the idea. “Now hush up and settle down. You’re gettin’ too salty, bro. Been gettin’ too salty all night.”

“It’s okay, really,” Nepeta says. “I understand, Gamzee. Meowrails are hard to control, sometimes.”

_ What?  _ Like  _ they’re  _ the ones controlling  _ you— _ ha! You’re the stable, in-control moirail in this relationship, it’s  _ you,  _ it’s definitely you—

“That it is, sister,” Gamzee says sympathetically, patting your head. You are going to  _ bite  _ his fingers off if he does that again. “I best be gettin’ mine to ‘coon before he gets any grouchier than he already is.”

Nepeta laughs. “That’s a purr-tty good idea. What’s the highest caste between the two of you? That’s how they assign blocks here.”

“Uh—well, that’d be me, I guess,” Gamzee says, scratching his chin. “Purple as can be.”

Behind you, Equius makes a choked wheezing sound. You whip around to glare at him—yeah? your moirail is purpleblooded, does he want to  _ fight  _ about it!?—and find him flushed dark blue to his shoulders, his face disturbingly... _ damp.  _ Ew. 

“You?” he demands, pointing at Gamzee. “You’re a  _ purpleblood?” _

“Uh—”

“He’s wearing freaky clown cult  _ facepaint,”  _ you say, gesturing wildly at Gamzee’s aforementioned freaky clown cult facepaint. “What the fuck else would he be, seriously? Are your powers of perception even weaker than your social skills?”

“It’s not unheard of for purplebloods’ quadrants to assimilate into their holy religion and wear—”

You bury your face against your palms and gnash your teeth with frustration. You didn’t think you could combine both your levels of assholery and Gamzee’s levels of sheer thick-headedness, but here does the combination stand, right in front of you, taken shape as a weird sweaty blueblood. 

Oh my god you just want to go to  _ sleep. _

You hear Gamzee’s soft chuckle a second before he wraps his arms around you, squeezing you close to himself. He’s a familiar, bony line of cold weight behind you, and you feel yourself relaxing against your will, goddamnit. “Easy, there, little brother. All’s well. Settle down now.” He lowers his voice some, adding in an undertone just for you, “Do I gotta carry a brother to ‘coon, hm? Gotta hold him close so he don’t lash out anyway he’ll regret? Or do I gotta get him all soft and sweet and settled down for me right the fuck here?”

Your irritated little growl chokes off in something resembling a squawk, your face heating. You bat at his hands where they rest against your stomach, more for show than anything else, and hiss petulantly at him. “Oh, fuck off, you chilly barnacle. He started it. Fucking—asshole. Anyway, the fuck does it matter that he’s a purple?” you demand, glaring at Equius until Gamzee cups a hand over your eyes and blocks your view and—mm, it’s dark and safe behind his palm and you are so  _ tired.  _

“He—I—” Equius swallows hard, hands curling into fists at his sides. “I have been remiss. You have my apologies, highblood. Someone like myself should never have presumed to speak to you or your quadrant in such a manner. Such disrespect must naturally be punished, though I humbly beg your mercy.”

And then he—kneels. In front of your moirail. In front of Gamzee. 

“Oh, no—no, bro, hey, come on, it’s alright.” Gamzee hugs you tighter—comforting himself more than you, you think. “You don’t have to do that. Ain’t—ain’t nothin’ to apologize for, really. Everything you said was right, anyway—er, well, the parts about me, at least. You don’t gotta—come on, motherfucker, get up. Please don’t do that.”

Equius lowers his head, hunches his shoulders. Fuck. He’s practically groveling at your feet. Gamzee’s voice is going higher-pitched, stressed and confused. Rage seethes in your chest.

“Get up!” you snarl, lurching in Equius’ direction—Gamzee’s grip is the only thing that keeps you from getting to him. You suppose you’ll be grateful for that later, but right now it just  _ pisses you off _ . “Aren’t you listening? If you’re so sorry, do what he tells you, already!”

Equius bolts to his feet, wrapping his arms around himself. “Sorry, I’m sorry, my apologies, highblood—I was under the impression that—I was.” He snaps his mouth shut with an audible  _ crack.  _ You think he just snapped a fucking fang or five. “I’m sorry.”

Gamzee lets out a relieved breath, loosening against you. “‘s okay, motherfucker, really. You don’t gotta be apologizin’ at me. I—”

The four of you freeze, suddenly, as a door down the hallway swings open. An adult troll steps out, glancing over at you—they pin their ears. “Keep it down, wigglers,” they warn, and the four of you flatten yourselves against the wall as they pad past you. You nostrils flare nervously. They smell like danger—like something you should definitely be avoiding.

And now you  _ live  _ with them. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck you hate adults.

As soon as the adult disappears up the stairs, Nepeta practically climbs her moirail—she cinches her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and murmurs something in his ear. You twist your attention away from them and back to your own moirail, squirming around so you can drop your forehead against his chest. He brings a hand up to cup the back of your head, scratching through your short hair. 

“Bro,” he says. “For serious. You gotta be more  _ chill.” _

You grumble at him and he nips your ear scoldingly. 

“Alright,” Nepeta says after a moment, and when you glance back at her she’s dropped off of Equius and is holding his hand tightly, instead. She won’t meet your eyes. “Come on. We need to get you guys to your block meow. This way—”

She trots off in front of you, hauling Equius along behind her, and the two of you follow her farther down the hall and up a set of stairs that bring you into another, shorter hall. Nepeta sniffs her way down the hall until she reaches a door near the end. “Here,” she says, glancing back at you. “This one smells empty, but there’s definitely fresh sopor inside. They probably got your ‘coons ready for you. I’d say this is your place.”

“Thanks, sister,” Gamzee says. “You’ve helped a brother out a mighty amount. We’re motherfuckin’ grateful for it.”

Nepeta offers him a smile—it’s a little more subdued than it was earlier, though, and her tail curls around her leg. “It’s no purr-oblem. I hope we can see you around sometime soon. You seem like nice trolls—maybe even you, Mr. Crabby!” 

You scowl in her direction, but you try to make a little bit of a—nicer? less asshole-ish, at least—scowl. Gamzee seems to like her, anyway, and you don’t want him to be disappointed.  _ She’s  _ not too awful (though you have nothing of the sort to say for her palemate). Still, you have to maintain a  _ little  _ bit of your asshole image. “Whatever,” you bite out, pushing open your door and stomping inside. “Go away. One over-enthusiastic dumbass is my quota, and I reached it four and a half sweeps ago.”

You hear Nepeta giggle behind you, and Gamzee exchanges a few more words with her and Equius before he slips in after you and shuts the door. “Brother—”

“Hold that thought. Put a pause on the scolding,” you say, holding up a hand. “Right now let’s enjoy the fact that  _ this is our block.” _

Because  _ fuck yeah.  _ This is  _ your  _ block, and nobody is gonna come in here unless you  _ want  _ them to. There’s no lusus to nag you, no guards to hide from, no impending doom. Nobody but you and your moirail. This belongs to  _ you.  _ The thought floods your chest with visceral satisfaction. 

It’s not a big block, but it’s big enough, you think. There are two simple black ‘coons, one on each side, along with two closets and two dressers. The walls are beige and barren, and there are no windows, but there’s a soft green-tinted light on the ceiling that reminds you of Alternia’s moonlight. It smells clean. Clean and neat and unowned.

“Ours, bro,” Gamzee murmurs, setting a hand on your shoulder. He sounds like he doesn’t really believe it. “This is all ours. Mother _ fucker.”  _

A victorious little growl bubbles up in your throat and you don’t bother holding it back. You prowl eagerly around the block, examining every little corner and crevice. Gamzee does the same, and you can hear him snuffling noisily at everything, familiarizing himself with the scents. The both of you pick your ‘coons—yours on the right and his on the left—and then you set to scent-marking everything you can.

Once you’ve nuzzled the gland beneath your jaw against every item of furniture on your side of the block, you slip over and begin doing the same to Gamzee’s side. He’s done a good job covering his things with his scent already, and you breathe him in. Crushed leaves, damp stone, storm clouds. Yours. Home. You blend your scent greedily with his, because he’s yours and what’s his is yours and here is a place you both  _ belong.  _ He does the same to your side, and by the time the both of you are done, you feel safer and more content than you have in perigees. Even thoughts of Sollux and Equius can’t wipe away your satisfaction.

“Beautiful, best friend,” Gamzee says, sighing blissfully and taking a seat in the middle of the floor. He’s already licking fresh sopor off of his fingers. “Motherfuckin’ perfection.”

You chirr your agreement, heading over to your dresser. There’s a wrapped basket on top of it, and a twin basket rests on Gamzee’s dresser. When you tear yours open, you discover that it’s filled to the brim with ablutions items, clean clothes, a pair of new shoes, and snacks. There’s even a stupid ‘welcome home’ card on the top. And you—well, you know this isn’t the life you want. Not for yourself, and certainly not for Gamzee. But you also know this has the potential to be better than the life you  _ had,  _ and you’re not obtuse enough to look a gift horse in the mouth (mostly, anyway). Right now, you’re a lucky fucking shit and you know it.

But you are a lucky,  _ tired  _ fucking shit.

“You ready for ‘coon?” you ask, scrubbing a hand across your eyes and drifting back in Gamzee’s direction. “I know it’s still early, but—”

“But you’re a sleepy little motherfucker, huh?” Gamzee stands up, leaning down to nuzzle into what’s left of your hair. You thread your arms around his waist and hum softly in agreement. You are the sleepiest motherfucker, it’s you. “Me too, bro. It’s been a long-ass day and a longer-ass night, and our timing’s fucked all to hell from that trip anyway. Let’s get our sleep on and tomorrow evenin’ we can jam some, yeah? Figure we got a hell of a lot to jam about.”

You nod against his chest, giving him one last squeeze before reluctantly drawing back and beginning to shed your clothes. You scowl at your bright yellow shorts, flinging them into a far corner because  _ fuck Sollux, seriously.  _ Across from you, Gamzee tries to strip out of his own clothes, barely managing to stay on his feet as he does. You snort, and he flashes you a sheepish grin. 

As he struggles to tug his sweater over his unwieldy horns, you fiddle with the light switch on the wall. There’s one that controls the green light and a second one that controls a bright white light—you and Gamzee both flinch back when you have the misfortune to turn that one on. You leave it on, though, squinting as you make your way to your ‘coon and hop inside. You prop your chin on the edge and watch Gamzee as he finally manages to get his goddamned shirt off and starts wiping his paint away. There are seven little bandages across his bare shoulders—four on his right and three on his left, in a smattering of different colors. They match yours. 

“Good morning, best friend,” Gamzee murmurs once his face is clean, reaching over to pat gently between your horns. You lean up and nibble his fingers with sleepy affectionate, and his face does something awful and warm and romantic.  

“Morning, asshole. Go to sleep and I’ll see you in the evening.” You push him in the direction of his own ‘coon, though it feels lonely to do so—you haven’t slept without him in perigees. There’s too much room in this ‘coon. “Pale for you.”

Gamzee climbs into his own ‘coon, waving at you from across the block. “So motherfuckin’ pale for you too, Karkat. You have no fuckin’ idea.”

You harrumph half-heartedly at him, flopping back into your sopor and closing your eyes. This dumbass abandoned everything he knew and traveled halfway across the universe for you—how dare he think you don’t know how much he pities you? Of course you do. He pities you so fucking much you think it’ll kill you both, and you? 

Well, you pity him right the fuck back. If you die, you’ll die happy and in love, and may the universe fucking  _ tremble  _ in the face of your moirallegiance. 

* * *

You wake up slowly the next night, your consciousness drudging its way to the forefront of your mind through a thick layer of warmth and light. When you finally slog your way into sitting up out of your slime, your phone helpfully informs you that you’ve slept almost ten hours. On Alternia, that puts the current time at half past three in the morning. On Earth, you have no  _ fucking  _ idea what time it is. You should really change your settings soon.

Across from you, Gamzee is already awake and leaning against the edge of his ‘coon, fiddling with his own phone. He’s still coated in a fine layer of slime, but your carpet is mercifully free of any sticky footprints. His ears prick up when he hears you stir, and he flashes a bright grin in your direction. “Evening, littlest brother. How’d a motherfucker sleep?”

You grunt. That’s—about all you’re capable of right now. You rest your chin on the edge of your ‘coon and stare sleepily at him as the world resolves itself into clearer colors and shapes, your head aching some and your muscles complaining at you, though you don’t know what the fuck you’ve done to piss them off this time. The thickest of the sopor drips off of your torso, until it’s finally too thin to let you breathe comfortably through your skin. You force yourself to blow your nose—into your elbow, eugh, you need to get tissues soon—and then take a deep breath with your lungs, instead. Your respiratory system stretches itself awake along with the rest of you, and you yawn wide enough to crack your jaw. 

“You up for some ablutions?” Gamzee asks after a few minutes, setting his phone aside. “I think we got an ablutions block right there—” He gestures at a door near the back of your block, on his side. “Think we might be sharin’ with some other motherfuckers, though. Heard ‘em gettin’ up and around earlier, but I think they’ve gone away now.”

You grunt again, reaching automatically for your sylladex—you’ll need a towel or slippers or  _ something  _ to keep your floor clean. Unfortunately, you’ve been cleared out by your trip, and there’s nothing in your sylladex but a few packets of sopor concentrate, your sickles, the cream and vitamins the medic gave you yesterday, and the tooth of that bastard lusus that killed your crabshitter.

Your heart twists, remembering that last particular item, and you grind your teeth and drag yourself out of your ‘coon, resolved to just—clean up the mess later. 

Gamzee squirms out of his own ‘coon, padding after you to the ablutions block. You peek inside, sniffing warily—this place smells like strangers, like adults. It smells like you shouldn’t be here. But the door is unlocked, and the block is empty, and you don’t want to wander to the downstairs ablutions block whilst dripping sopor everywhere. You bolster yourself with a deep breath, snagging your ablutions things from your gift basket, and then proceed to run through the absolute  _ fastest  _ morning ablutions you’ve ever done. 

The two of you emerge from the block a few minutes later _ ,  _ clean and fresh-fanged. You tug on some of your new clothes—a plain black sweater and pale gray jeans—while Gamzee tears open his own gift basket, practically squeaking in joy over his  _ motherfuckin’ presents, best friend!  _ He pulls on a black tank-top and matching sweatpants, then sets about painting his face. As he does, you flick off the bright light in favor of the much more respectable dim, green light and then scrub the sopor-spots off of your floor with a washcloth. 

“There,” you huff, once your block and your moirail are clean and decent. “We need to buy some shit for this place, seriously.”

“Mm, gonna be awful hard to do, since we’re not allowed to leave as of yet,” Gamzee reminds you, captchaloging his greasepaint containers. “Might wanna start makin’ a list so we can get a haul once our shots are caught up.”

“That’s an unfortunately and uncharacteristically pragmatic idea,” you complain. You snag your phone off of the charger and sprawl out on the floor, beginning to type up a quick list of things you’ll need. Once you’ve done that, you skim through your Trollian messages. John and Tavros have both messaged you their good evenings, and there are also, you notice grimly, a grand total of twenty-seven messages from Sollux. You ignore them. It is way too early in the evening to be dealing with  _ that  _ shit. 

Gamzee stretches out beside you as you both troll John and Tavros, and you eventually shift to drape yourself across his stomach. You really need to scrape a pile together, but you don’t exactly have much. You scribble that onto your ‘list of things Karkat and Gamzee need to enjoy their shitty lives,’ too. Once you’ve grown bored of entertaining John’s inane comments and Tavros’ overabundance of insecurity, you roll off of Gamzee and decaptchalogue your vitamins and cream. 

“Here, eat that—make sure you actually chew it,” you say, tossing a gummy vitamin in Gamzee’s direction and chomping one down yourself. You set the bottle of vitamins on your dresser so Gamzee can access it even when you’re not around, then move to sit next to his feet, pulling them into your lap. He yelps when you rub the first of the itch cream across the bumps on his skin, and you click your teeth irritably at him—but you warm the next batch of cream between your palms before slathering it over his legs and ears. 

“Let me do you too, motherfucker,” Gamzee insists once you’re done, reaching for the cream and making big, pleading eyes at you until you relent. He takes care to copy you, rubbing the cream between his palms (though it doesn’t do much to warm it, chilly as he is) before rubbing it over your fleabites. Once he’s finished, he wraps his arms around you and pulls you down to lay on top of him again, chirring contentedly into your shoulder.

“You wanna jam?” you ask, curling up on top of him. He’s all cold skin and bones, not comfortable at all, but he’s still the best pile you’ve ever had. 

“Fuck yeah, best friend.” He rubs one hand slowly up and down your back, claws tracing your spine. “How you been feelin’? About—all this?”

“Feeling like fucking shit,” you say automatically, and then you pause and actually think about it for a minute. Gamzee waits, doodling little diamond shapes across your shoulders. “But—it’s not  _ that  _ bad, I guess. We’re clean and we’re warm and we’re not hungry and hiding from guards, so I guess this is actually an improvement. Shit, go figure. What about you? How are you feeling?”

“I’m feelin’ pretty motherfucking good, brother. Like you up and said already—we’ve got ourselves taken care of, here. It’s a goddamn improvement for certain. Even worth those fuckin’ shots, I think.”

“Mm—speaking of which—” You reach around, beginning to pluck the soggy bandages off of his shoulders. “Keep going.”

“Though I do think they’re makin’ me feel a little sick,” Gamzee admits. “Those shots, I mean. Had a headache most of the evening, and my muscles are all chilly and sore. You feelin’ like that, too?”

“Mm—I did a little, when I woke up, but the ablutions helped. Let me know if it gets any worse and we can go talk to the medic, okay?” You rasp your tongue over the tiny little pinpricks on his shoulders, though they hardly need them. The disinfecting kept them clean enough, and he won’t need your saliva to help him heal such tiny holes. Still, he’s relaxing with each swipe of your tongue, and that’s excuse enough for you to keep going. 

“Okay, bro,” Gamzee agrees placidly, one big hand cupping the back of your neck. “You too, got it? Now—” He sits up, bundling you into his lap and going to work plucking off your own bandages. “How’s about that fucking deal with Sollux?”

A bitter growl curls itself up into your throat. “Fuck him, seriously. I can’t believe I ever even—I didn’t think that he would ever be so fucking  _ stupid.  _ I mean, I guess it’s my fault for telling him in the first place, but I—” You falter, studying your claws where they brace against Gamzee’s chest. “I was stupid. A stupid fucking wiggler. I never should have told him that shit if I wanted to stay safe.”

“You weren’t stupid, little motherfucker,” Gamzee murmurs, rasping his own tongue across your shoulder between words. His tongue is lukewarm at best, scratchy against your skin, but you instinctively lean towards him anyway. “You were hopeful.”

“I was naïve.”

Gamzee is quiet for a minute, resting his pointy chin on your shoulder once he’s finished licking your wounds. “Nothin’ wrong with being naïve, little brother. You  _ were  _ just a wiggler. And besides, those choices you made weren’t  _ all  _ bad. You told me about that beautiful color of yours too, didn’t you? That worked out alright.” He pauses, wrinkling his nose. “Leastways I hope?”

“Yeah, it worked out alright, shitsponge.” You pat his face gently, careful not to smudge his fresh, still-damp paint. “Because you managed to keep your goddamn trap shut for once. Sollux did  _ not.”  _

“That he did not,” Gamzee agrees. “But I can understand why he motherfuckin’ did it. Not saying that makes it  _ right,  _ but it’s understandable, at least. He kept himself livin’, and us, too, motherfucker. No harm’s come of it yet, as far as I can see, so—if it’s to be a sin in your eyes, brother, ain’t it at least a forgivable one?”

You curl your hands into fists, claws biting your palms. “What if he would have done the same thing on Alternia?” you demand. “What if he told someone about my fucked up biology to save his own skin while we were still at home? That would have gotten me  _ killed.  _ He would have seen me  _ murdered  _ to keep himself alive.” 

And that’s—fair, you know it’s fair. Trolls look out for themselves about all else. How can you fault Sollux for that? But it still fucking  _ stings.  _ You thought he—you thought—

You thought too much of him. That’s what you fucking thought.

“If I thought he wished you dead, brother, I would see him slaughtered and drowning in his own blood before sunrise,” Gamzee assures you, butting his head against yours. Ah, but he comforts you the way only an overconfident murderclown can. “But I don’t think he wished that at all. He’s clever, that yellow motherfucker. I think he knew what he was doing when he told. I think he knew it wouldn’t mean your death. I can’t say as his decision would have been different if it  _ had  _ meant your death, but a brother can’t rightly say it would have stayed the same, either.”

You know he’s—probably right, loathe as you are to admit it. (You want to believe he’s right. You want to believe  _ so badly).  _ “Yeah,” you mutter, unclenching your fists. “Maybe.”

“Think on it, best friend.” Gamzee brushes his thumb softly against your cheek. “I ain’t asking you to forgive him if you can’t, but I wouldn’t see us lose a friend if we don’t have to. We got few enough of ‘em as it is.”

“I’ll think about it,” you grudgingly agree, shoving your face into his neck, where it’s cool and dark and everything seems better. “But at the rate you’re making  _ friends,  _ we might not need to worry about losing one or two. The fuck was up with those weirdass trolls last night?”

“Oh, bitchtits, brother—” Gamzee says, his voice brightening considerably as he squeezes you to himself. “Those trolls were wicked cool. They didn’t want to fight or anything—isn’t that so fuckin’ neat? That little sister even said we could be friends—er,  _ fur- _ iends!”

“Oh my god, don’t even start,” you grumble against his throat. “I don’t need a play-by-play recap. I was  _ there _ . She was way too enthusiastic—and her moirail was a casist, thickheaded jerk.” 

“Aw, no, little brother—sure, they were a little flawed, but who ain’t? I liked them motherfuckin’ fierce.”

“You liked them because they were the first trolls to give you any friendly attention besides _ me.” _ You huff, wrapping your arms around his neck. You’re not jealous, okay? You are  _ not.  _ “You fucking pathetic mess. There’s nothing to like about those two.”

“Sure there is,” Gamzee insists. “Little sister was sunny-bright and cheerful, and awful funny with those meowbeast words of hers, too. Made a motherfucker feel right fucking mirthful, she did. And that blueblooded brother was a little odd, sure enough, but at least he was honest.”

“Yeah,  _ honestly  _ an asshole. He insulted you, and then he fucking—” You flap a hand in the air, growling, “—kneeled, god, fuck. Like you were some kind of—” 

Highblood. Like he’s some kind of highblood. Which he  _ is,  _ but you don’t—you don’t want to think about that. Gamzee should just be  _ Gamzee.  _ Your sweet, clumsy, dopey  _ Gamzee.  _ Nobody kneels to him. And if last night was any indication, he doesn’t  _ want  _ them to. You don’t want Equius changing that. You don’t want  _ anybody  _ changing that.

(Because if they do, he won’t be your Gamzee anymore. He’ll be a highblood, and he’ll realize how wrong it is for him to be saddled with a mutant freak like  _ you.) _

“Alright, so that part was a mite uncomfortable,” Gamzee concedes. “But I think we got a motherfucker worked out, there at the end. Let’s give ‘em a chance, diamond mine. We gotta make some friends while we’ve got the chance.”

“You’re the only troll here who needs  _ friends,”  _ you point out, leaning back to poke the tip of his nose. “Stupid purpleblood sociableness. It’s gonna get us killed, one of these nights.”

“I wouldn’t let anything harm hide nor hair of yours, Karkat,” he says, his smile dropping some. “Not for anything. Not for all the friends in the whole fucking world. If you think as—if you really think it a danger to be friends with them, I’ll—”

“No, no no no,” you say, papping a hand over his mouth. “Shut up. I’m not doing this. I’m not doing the possessive, control-freak shithouse moirail thing, I will  _ not.  _ I’ve had you all to myself for perigees. It’s not fair to keep you away from other trolls.” Even as much as you want to. If you keep him to yourself, he’ll be safe. If you keep him to yourself,  _ you’ll  _ be safe. 

But  _ whatever.  _ Sharing is fucking caring, you guess.

“So is that a yes?” Gamzee asks, wiggling in excitement and looking at you with big, bright eyes. “We can be friends with those motherfuckers?”

“Like you need my permission,” you say scathingly.  _ “You  _ can be friends with those motherfuckers. I’ll—reserve judgement, I guess.”

Gamzee crows with delight, crushing you to himself and giggling giddily into your hair. Your miserable whelp of a heart warms at the sound—your palemate is  _ happy,  _ and fuck if that isn’t everything you ever want. “Thank you, best friend! This is gonna be so motherfuckin’  _ awesome— _ we’re gonna have real life friends,” he says, practically vibrating with excitement. Purplebloods, honestly. “We can do hang-outs and sleepovers and movie nights with all  _ four  _ of us, maybe even  _ five, _ and it’s gonna be so great—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if they hurt you—” You reach up, squishing his cheeks between your hands. “I will  _ break  _ their motherfucking  _ necks.” _

Gamzee laughs, pressing a kiss to each of your palms. “Right back atcha, best friend. I’d snap a thousand spines to keep you whole and unharmed.”

“Romantic,” you say, your voice dry. But—it is, isn’t it? Romantic, in the awfulest sense of the word. Nothing matters more to you than he does. You would watch the entire universe burn if it meant keeping him alive. Hell, you’d set it on fire yourself.

You only hope you never have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will probably have a longer wait time then usual, bc i'm about to get hellishly busy. shouldn't be more than two weeks, though; thanks for your patience! you guys are the best! :D


	14. neighbors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: implications/references to violence
> 
> chapter track: "prelude for a single snowflake under a streetlight, falling like a star" by lullatone

“—and so we had our own motherfuckin’ squeakbeast farm for a while,” you tell your new sister as you dig into your breakfast. “Weren’t hardly more than a mouthful of meat each, but there were an awful lot of ‘em there towards the end.”

“How’d you hunt them? Did you trap them or go after them the good, old-fashioned way?” she asks, kneading eagerly at the table with her little orange claws. 

“Good and motherfucking old-fashioned for sure.” You flick a piece of fried meat across the table and she pounces a hand on it, grinning with all her wicked needlepoint teeth before scarfing it down.

“That’s how I used to hunt all the time. Equius says it’s im-purr-oper, but he’s never had to hunt very hard for his food. What about you? What other kinds of things did you hunt back on Alternia?” 

“I fished, mostly—lived right up next to the bitchin’ sea,” you tell her, digging into your eggs. “Then there’d be shit stuck up in the tidepools all the time. Crabs and snakes and clams and what motherfuckin’ have you. When Karkat came over we’d head to the forest to catch hoofbeasts, sometimes.”

“Mm—I miss hunting hoofbeasts,” your little sister says, sighing forlornly and picking at her own breakfast food. “I miss _hunting._ We never get to do it here. The only prey around are humans, and it isn’t legal to hunt those—not that they’d make for a very exciting hunt, anyway.”

“Yeah, they are kinda—” You wave a hand in the air. “What’s the motherfuckin’ word?”

“Weak?” Nepeta offers. “Small? Defenseless? An odd choice for the top of the food chain and probably a mistake of natural selection?”

“Yeah, that.” You beam at her, bringing your plate up to lick it clean. A gentle cuff meets the back of your head shortly after, and you yelp and set your plate right the fuck back down.

“Don’t do that, dumbass,” Karkat scolds, slouching across from you with a half-empty bottle of orange juice. “Manners.”

Oh, shit, yeah, manners. That’s still a thing as you’re like to have. “Sorry, best friend,” you say, smiling sheepishly at him as you lick your teeth clean. He harrumphs at you, chugging his juice. “So what all are we gonna be up and doing tonight?”

Little brother shrugs, glancing briefly at Nepeta. “I don’t know. The fuck is there to do around here, anyway, Leijon?”

“Oh, there’s lots of stuff,” Nepeta says, her eyes brightening when Karkat glances her way, sitting herself up a little straighter. “There are training blocks if you wanna exercise or spar, and there’s a rumpusblock with a TV and lots of movies and books, or Equius and I have some games in our respiteblock.”

Karkat hums, waving a hand absently in her direction. “There are your options, clownface. Pick whatever you want.”

“Those all sound motherfuckin’ awesome, sister,” you tell at her, grinning when her bright blue tail twitches happily. You consider your options as best you can, trying to decide what’ll make your littlest brother happy, too. You figure you both still feel kinda sore all over from those damned shots, so you decide to forgo sparring for a while yet. “Can we be playing some games, first? And then after lunch we can watch some romcoms—that okay, best friend?”

“Sure, whatever,” your best friend says. He seems determined not to react with any abundance of emotion in front of Nepeta—you’re not quite sure _why,_ but whatever a brother wants to be doing, you suppose. He’ll warm himself up to her eventually. Bristly on the outside he may be, but your crabby little brother’s a soft, squishy mess of pity on the inside. 

“That sounds _purr-fect,”_ Nepeta says, chirping happily. “Except for one thing—I have to go visit a fur-iend this afternoon, but I’ll be back around midnight—can we play games after lunch and do movies after dinner instead?”

“That works for me, sister,” you say, glancing at your best friend—he doesn’t give any indication it’s okay, but he doesn’t say it’s _not_ okay, either, so you roll with it. “We’ll see you for lunch, then?”

“Definitely.” She hops up, grabbing her plate and cup. “Let’s go wash these and then I’ve gotta get outta here.”

You follow your little sister out of the diningblock and back to the kitchen. There are three adult trolls sitting at the table—purples, if their paint is anything to go by—and you instinctively drop your gaze when they look your way, drooping your ears. Brothers and sisters in the faith they may be, but they _are_ still adults, and like as not to eat you if you bother them.

“Hey there, wiggler,” one of them calls, and you snatch a glance their way. They’re all watching you, eyes narrowed. Behind you, you hear Karkat’s breathing speed up. “Yeah, you. Little purple bastard. C’mere.”

You set your plate down next to the sink and pad obediently in their direction, keeping your lips tucked carefully over your teeth, eyes flickering away from theirs to tell at them _not a threat, siblings, not even a thing of interest to you._

“You’re new here, huh?” the adult asks—she’s hardly pupated, her newest set of fangs still grownin’ in. “What’s your name?”

“Gamzee Makara, sister,” you tell her, tipping your head to the side as respectful as you can. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Aw, hell—he’s a polite thing, ain’t he?” one of the other adults asks, curling her lip up at you. “Lusus must’ve raised him right.”

You gotta chuckle at that, and a smile flickers across the first adult’s face when you do. 

“Got the mirth in him, too,” she comments, reaching out to ruffle roughly over your short hair. Her claws prick and sting at your scalp. “There may be hope for you yet, little fucker. Make it through pupation and you might be worth something.”

“Messiahs willing,” you agree, and the adult grins at you.

“Messiahs willing, indeed. Alright, get outta here, pupa. Go back to your shitbloods. I just wanted to get an eye on our newest recruit.” She waves a hand dismissively at you, turning back to her siblings. You duck back to Karkat’s side as soon as you can, relief gettin’ its party on up in your chest. The three of you scrub your plates off and set them out to dry, then abscond out of the kitchen as quick as you can. 

“Jesus _fuck,”_ Karkat says, as soon as you’re out of earshot. “I hate adults, seriously, I fucking hate them, I—”

“Hey, it’s chill, motherfucker.” You reach out to ruffle his hair gently. Make sure _your_ claws don’t prick and sting. “Ain’t nothin’ bad happened. Just siblings getting curious, that’s all. They seemed pretty nice.”

“They’re usually decent most of the time,” Nepeta agrees, trotting along beside you until you reach the stairs. “As long as you stay out of their way, I mean. I’ll see you guys later, okay?”

“Aw—be seeing you soon, sister. Take care,” you say, leaning down to bonk your forehead all friendly-like against hers. She grins and bonks you back sharply, then waves and jumps down the stairs in a few lithe springs, her big green coattail flapping behind her until she disappears around the corner. “She’s pretty nice, huh, bro? I done told you so.”

Karkat huffs all pissy at you, stomping his way upstairs, and you follow after him, as is your wont. The two of you wind up back in your respiteblock, and you catch him up in your arms, nuzzling against his soft little undercoat. “You’re still my favorite,” you assure him, patting his cute lil tummy. “That ain’t changin’, motherfucker.”

He drops his head back against your chest, driving his stubby little horns into your collarbones. Ow. You sure are glad this little brother isn’t pointy—you’d be full of more holes than you dare to count. 

“Whatever. It’s not like _I_ care who you like best. Bulgesniffer.” He adds his insult like an afterthought and wrinkles his nose up at you, sticking his tongue out, and you gotta laugh. Bend down and fit your mouth to his, pressing the sweetest little kiss to his lips. He opens his mouth like he’s got half a mind to grouch at you, then just grumbles and nips your lips, instead. His nubby little teeth don’t even sting.

You kiss him there a while, more than content to spend your evening doing that and nothin’ else, but your husktop chirps insistently at you ‘till little Karkat finally jerks away and glares at it. You whine at him, tugging on his shirt to get his attention back to you, but he clicks his teeth and tugs you over to the husktop instead. Bends down and squints at your screen.

“John’s trolling you,” he says, hands on his hips. “Wanna videochat him?”

You brighten some, pricking your ears. It sure has been a while since you’ve gotten to see that sweet motherfucker’s squishy brown face and colorful eyes. “Yeah, motherfucker, let’s do it. Brush up on that English.”

You take a seat on the floor, leanin’ against Karkat’s ‘coon, and balance your husktop on the floor in front of you. Karkat starts the chat before taking a seat beside you, his knees pulled to his chest and his arms draped around them. John answers almost immediately, beaming at you both for a brief second before his eyes suddenly narrow. 

“Hi, guys! Where—uh, where _are_ you? And more importantly, what happened to all your _hair?”_ he asks, cocking his head to the side. He doesn’t have any horns to tilt away from you, but the gesture feels friendly all the same.

“Chopped it all off, motherfucker,” you inform him cheerfully, scrubbing a hand over your fluffy undercoat. “You like?”

John leans towards his camera, propping his chin in his hands and studying you both. “Yeah,” he says, nodding slowly. “I mean—does it make you happy?”

“Sure motherfucking does.”

“Then of course I like it.” He grins at you, showin’ off all his blunt teeth. “What matters is that it makes you both happy, right? And hey—it even makes your horns look a little longer, Karkat!”

“Oh, _fuck you,_ you slimy piece of negligent, festering garbage. Like you know the first thing about horns—you don’t even _have_ any. You’ve got a stupid, flat skull, like some kind of—of—” Little brother flaps his hands, growling as his English fails him once again. “Piece of paper! Like a piece of paper. Like a big, nasty, horrible piece of paper who _needs to stop smiling at me right now Egbert I swear to god—”_

John tips his head back and laughs, shows off his whole throat with no fear and it amazes you, a little bit. How can he do that? How he can he afford to be so incautious? You know you ain’t there with him, not really, couldn’t reach out and slit his throat—you wonder if he’d act the same if he were in the same block with you. You bet not. Ain’t nobody who can be so carefree.

“Seriously, though—” he starts, after Karkat’s tirade has wound down and your best friend is cupping one horn rather self-consciously. You’d much rather be the one as is holding it, but Karkat still hasn’t wanted you to fuck with that goddamn pretty submission reflex of his, not since you left Alternia. Doesn’t feel safe yet, you guess. That’s alright. You can bide. “Where are you guys? Did you get off of the ship okay? That means—you’re on Earth now, right?”

“No, fuckwad, we’re on the sun,” Karkat snaps. You gently ease his hand from his horn and tangle your fingers together. _“Yes,_ we’re on Earth, and as you can clearly see, we’re alive and well.”

“Oh my god, that’s _awesome!”_ John practically squeals, clapping his hands together in noisy human celebration. You chirrup happily in his direction because _hell yeah_ it’s awesome. “Guys, we’re _on the same planet!_ We’re basically _neighbors.”_

“That is definitely not how that works,” your best friend mutters, tipping his head back against his ‘coon, “and thank fucking god.”

“Motherfuckin’ neighbors!” you decide cheerfully, offering the husktop a fist-bump, which John enthusiastically returns through the screen. 

“So where are you guys at?” John asks, still squirming his shoulders happily as he speaks. “Like—what country? Can I know that?”

“Uuuh—” You squint your eyes, thinking real hard. Country? You don’t quite remember what the word means, let alone which one _you’re_ supposed to be in. You supply him with the only location you _do_ remember, however. “Tontorak.”

“Tontorak?” John hums thoughtfully, whipping out his phone and tapping away on it. “I’ve never heard of that country. Lemme see—oh! You mean the city? In New York?”

“Shit, bro, I dunno. Is it a city in New York?”

“Yes, it’s a city in New York, you dumbasses,” Karkat snaps, glowering first at you and then at your blue-eyed brother. “New York is the country, god.”

“New York is the state, actually,” John says, grinning at Karkat with a little gleam in his eyes—you do know he likes riling your best friend up. “The _country_ would be the United States of America, and the _continent_ would be North America. Here, look—”

Karkat gets himself snarly over being corrected, but he still leans forward to look at John’s phone on the husktop screen when John flips it around to show him. He taps one blunt human claw against a red dot near the tip of a green mass. 

“This is where you are, and this—” John scrolls a good ways across the green mass and taps down another red dot on the whole other side. “—is where I’m at. It’s still in the U.S., but the state is Washington and the city is Maple Valley. We’re only about two days away from each other. God, that’s so _cool.”_

Karkat rolls his eyes, tipping his head to rest it on your shoulder. “Yeah, whatever, nooksniffer. There’s still no way we’re going to be seeing each other any time soon.”

“Aw—” John props his face in his hands, frowning. “Why not? I mean—maybe not _soon,_ but sometime this year? If your family doesn’t mind, I mean—speaking of which.” He squints at you both. “Who are you staying with? Did you get picked up by one of those group homes or something?”

You open your mouth to tell him what’s what, but Karkat beats you do it, digging an elbow into your side. “Yeah,” he says, nodding his chin down sharply. Could be a human nod. Could be a threat, him jumping his horns down like that. You’re not sure which he means it as. “It’s not perfect, but—we’ve got food and shelter and shit, so.” 

“Well, that’s good. I have another friend who lives in a group home, and she says she doesn’t _hate_ it,” John says. “Anything’s better than Alternia, I guess.”

_That_ you can agree with, and you do so wholeheartedly, flashing him a grin. “Shit yeah, bro. Hells of fucking better and then some. What about you? How’s your—” You twirl a hand in the air, like that’s gonna make the word pop into your mind—and hey, it does! Fucking miracles. “—family? That lusus of yours?”

“Oh, he’s good.” There’s real actual joy in the little brother’s voice, then, his eyes brightening with affection. For a second, your chest stings something sharp. You remember feelin’ that way, thinking on your lusus. Remember feeling it more, thinking on Karkat’s. “Really good. Still—making cake all the time, heh. And he got me an awesome new phone for Christmas.” He grins, waggling his sleek blue phone at the husktop camera. “Check it oooout. Do you guys have Snapchat? Or, er, the troll version of Snapchat? Snapslap? Ha ha, I bet it’s Snapslap.”

As it turns out, you do not have Snapslap _or_ Snapchat, but that’s a quick enough fix—you and Karkat both download the app (Karkat with as much grumbling as he can manage) and then you are _motherfucking enchanted_ by the filters. You spend the next half hour flicking through them and giggling at yourself, sending a multitude of snaps through to both John and Karkat as they continue chatting at each other. Time passes quicker than you’d like it to, and then John has to hop off to go to his own lunch. It’s still a good few hours until yours, though.

“Whatcha wanna do now?” you ask Karkat, kinda dripping your way into his lap and opening your Trollian. You’ve got a chat from Tavbro, which sends a giddy little thrill through your chest—but that thrill is dampened right quick when you see you’ve got a message from Sollux, too. You roll over so your head is in Karkat’s lap and he can’t see your phone’s screen, then open it up.

“Mm, I dunno,” your best friend says, petting a hand absently across your hair. “We could check out some of the books Leijon said were in the rumpusblock. I mean we’d have to _find_ the rumpusblock, first.”

You make a thoughtful little hum, your eyes tracing across the yellow words on your screen—ain’t too good at multitasking, you, and most of Karkat’s words go in one ear and out the motherfuckin’ other.

twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling  terminallyCapricious [TC]

TA: gz? 

TA: ii’m really 2orry, 2eriiously.

TA: and ii know that doe2n’t make up for anythiing.

TA: and neiither one of you ii2 obliigated to forgiive me.

TA: but ii ju2t

TA: wanted u2 all to be okay.

TA: and ii’m 2orry iif that wa2 2elfiish. ii dont know. but ii thiink iid do iit agaiin iif ii had the choiice. ii gue22 the only thiing i regret ii2 that ii fucked up kk2 tru2t. 

TA: and iim not a2kiing for that back.

TA: not liike you can giive iit to me anyway.

TA: ii just

TA: mii22 hiim.

TA: he2 a fuckiing biitch but he2 2tiill my be2t friiend, for 2ome godawful and unfathomable rea2on.

TA: and he wont an2wer hii2 me22ages, 2o iif you could

TA: and iif you arent fuckiing pii22ed at me too

TA: could you tell hiim to an2wer hii2 goddamn phone?

TC: HeY tHeRe, LiL mOtHeRfUcKeR!

TC: i Am A lItTlE bIt Up AnD rIgHtEoUsLy PiSsEd At YoU, bEiNg As YoU nEgLeCtEd My PaLeMaTe’s MoSt PrEcIoUs MoThErFuCkInG tRuSt.

TC: BuT i CaN’T sAy As I hAvEn’t MaDe My OwN mIsTaKeS, tOo. We’rE aLl MoThErFuCkIn SiNnErS iN tHe EnD, hOnK :o(

TC: ThE gOoD nEwS iS tHe MeSsIaHs HaVe GoT tHeIr MoThErFuCkIn MeRcY uP aNd On

TC: AnD sO wHo’s A mOtHeRfUcKeR lIkE mE tO bE uNfOrGiViNg? 

TC: I aLrEaDy TaLkEd To My LiTtLe DiAmOnD aBoUt YoU.

TC: yOu GoTtA gIvE hIm TiMe, BrO.

TC: gIvE hIm TiMe AnD tAkE cArE yOu Do NoT cRoSs HiM aGaIn. I cAn’t PrOmIsE hE’Ll Be So FoRgIvInG nExT tImE

TC: bUt I cAn PrOmIsE yOu I wOn’t Be!

TC: HoNk :O)

TA: that ii2 2iimultaneou2ly comfortiing and omiinou2.

TA: 2o ii gue22 iit2 on par wiith mo2t of what you 2ay.

TA: …

TA: thank2, gz.

TA: iill do better, promii2e. ii diidnt mean to 2care kk. 

TC: DoN’T bE mAkInG pRoMiSeS aT mE, iNvErTeBrOtHeR. bE mAkInG tHeM aT mY pAlEsT fRiEnD wHeNeVeR hE cOmEs ArOuNd To YoU. 

TC: bUt

TC: YoU’Re MoSt MoThErFuCkInG wElCoMe :O)

TC: yOu’rE a GoOd TrOlL, sOlBrO. yOu GoT sOmE bItChTiTs MiRaClEs FlOwIn In ThAt BiG yElLoW hEaRt Of YoUrS

TC: aNd MiRaClEs In ThAt WiCkEd MoThErFuCkIn MiNd, ToO.

TC: yOu’rE a GoOd FrIeNd AnD i DoN’T gOt A wAnT tO lOsE yOu. I kNoW kArKaT aIn’t WaNtInG tHaT, eItHeR, bUt YoU dId HuRt A bRoThEr SoMeThIn FiErCe.

TC: He’s GoT a BiG hEaRt, ThOuGh. He’lL cOmE aRoUnD, dOn’t YoU wOrRy NoNe.

TA: worryiing ii2 a hobby of miine

TA: but iill try to lay off of iit for a liittle whiile, ii 2uppo2e.

TA: iill talk to you 2oon, gz. thank2 agaiin. youre a good friiend, too.

TC: AwW, tHaNkS, mOtHeRfUcKeR! tHaT sUrE dOeS mEaNs A bUnCh!

TC: Be SeEiNg YoU aRoUnD!

twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling  terminallyCapricious [TC]

When you glance back up from your phone, Karkat is watching you with a fierce motherfuckin’ scowl, so you offer him your most sheepish of smiles. “Hey, bro,” you say, nuzzling up against his stomach. 

“Who’re you talking to?” he demands, leaning down to press your noses together. You lick playfully at his nose and he jerks back, clicking his teeth irritably. “Since you _clearly_ weren’t talking to me. What? Is my conversation too boring for even your thick fucking head?”

“Nah, that’s not it, brother.” You flop over so you can wrap your arms around his waist, squeezing him tight and kissing his cute little belly. Still too thin for your tastes, skin and bones and not much else, but you’ll get him back to healthy weight soon enough. “Your conversation is the light in this motherfucker’s stars, for well and true. I’m awful sorry if I made you feel otherwise. Didn’t mean it to be that way at all, motherfucker.”

You glance up at him with your best barkbeast eyes, big and shiny, ‘cause you know how that melts away his anger at you quick as anything. Dumb as a pile of rocks, you are, but you still know how to pull your palemate in all the right ways—and there he goes, shoulders slumping down and heat in his eyes fading. He grumbles wordlessly at you, papping a hand over your eyes.

“Stupid,” he says, false scorn in his voice. His fingers brush soft over your eyebrows, claws tracing the bony arches around your eyes. “You’re gonna drown me in all your goddamn sap. That’s it. That’s the cause of death for Karkat motherfucking Vantas. As though my life wasn’t humiliating enough on its own, we’ve gotta toss in a humiliating death-by-pity, too.”

You grin up at him, chuckling. “That don’t sound like half a bad death, little brother. Mind if I join you?”

“I will drown you in _so much fucking sap,_ you have no idea.” He leans down, pressing his chapped lips to the tip of your ear. “I will flood the whole world with it and you’ll have to doggy-paddle to your death like the aborted attempt at a seadweller you are.”

You wrap your arms around his neck and squeeze him close, though you gotta let him go sooner than you like—can’t be comfy for him, leanin’ over you like he is. You roll off his lap and sit up so you can snuggle up beside him, leaning your heads together. “I was talking to Sollux,” you admit, because keeping secrets from your moirail ain’t never set right with you.

Predictably, though, the fact that you were talking to Sollux doesn’t sit right with your palemate. “What?” he demands, bristling. You pet a hand over his hair, trying to smooth it back down. “What the fuck were you talking to that shithole for?”

“He was just gettin’ his apology on.” You scritch a little behind his ears— _that_ gets his hair to smooth out some. “Brother’s real sorry, you know. He worries about you.”

“Fuck him.” He hunches his shoulders, and you trace a hand down to run a palm over the stiff, tense line of them. Make an unhappy little croon that has him flicking his ears back at you, ever alert to your distresses. He ignores your distress this time, though, and doesn’t relax his little self at all. “I’ve met military defectors wallowing in a swinepit with more loyalty than that asshole has.”

“Well, now, that seems mighty unlikely.” You tug him into your lap and drape yourself over him, resting your chin on one tight little shoulder. “We don’t gotta talk about him, though. You take your time. There’s no rush to forgive him, and I told him as much.”

_“You_ forgive him?”

You think about it a minute, then nod. “Yeah, I motherfucking think so. Of course, it wasn’t me he hurt, not truly, so there’s not much forgiving to be done on my part. But I don’t think he meant any harm as couldn’t be fixed, and he is making work to fix it. Messiahs are merciful, bro—so too should I be.” 

Some of your very favorite verses out the mirthful Book preach to that topic, and you’ve seen the most holy priest, that Grand motherfucking Highblood himself, give a sermon or two on it in your church schoolfeeding. Not so much _his_ favorite topic, though, you think. He used to prefer darker sermons—sermons on holy rage and hatchright and motherfuckin’ _glory._ Good topics too, you think, but never your most fuckin’ favorite. Still, some of the Church’s most passionate preaching came from tapes a hundred sweeps old, tapes with him in a blood-spattered coat and a mouth full of venom. 

Nowadays, he mostly preaches on mirth and making merry. (You think his palemate did settle him down quite a fuckin’ bit, when they quadranted all those sweeps ago. You like him better settled, but you know there’s murmurs of discontent in the Church—murmurs that mayhap he’s gone soft, gone senile, that maybe he should be overthrown and his young heir slaughtered in cold blood. You try not to think about it too much.) 

“Oh, don’t bring your bullshit clown religion up now,” Karkat snaps, squirming in your lap. “That has fuck-all to do with me and you know it. _I’ll_ choose if I’m merciful or not, not some mythical fucking Messiahs.”

“Sure, bro,” you tell him, real chill, though his blasphemy does sting at you a bit—but you knew him as a heathen when you first spoke with him and you pitied him anyway. Pitied him so motherfuckin’ _hard._ Serendipity, it would seem, does not make distinction between holy and heathen. One of Messiahs’ solemnest fucking jokes. “Your mercy, your choice. I ain’t tellin’ you you gotta do anything. I’m just tellin’ you what I’ve done.”

Little brother lets out a big sigh and finally slumps back against you. You chirr your approval, nuzzling his shoulder. “Yeah, okay. I know. And if you want to forgive him, that’s—fine, that’s your choice. I just—I—need more time, I guess. Fuck.” He scowls up at the ceiling, crossing his arms over his chest. “Is he—okay? Not that I give a shit.”

“Not that you give a shit,” you agree, indulging him as best you can, “but he’s doin’ okay. Still torn up about your being angry, but he’ll bide.”

“Good,” your best friend mutters. “Deserves to be torn up. Piece of shit.”

“Hey, c’mon, now. Let’s not think about angry things anymore.” You lean forward and mouth at that soft dark spot in the crook of his jaw, askin’ after his claim, and he obliges you readily. Turns his head and rubs his jaw along your hair, spreading his scent roughly. “Let it go, best friend. Let all that bad shit rest a while. No need to go gettin’ worked up, unless you’re seekin’ a jam…?”

“No, I’m fine for now—we can jam before ‘coon.” He squirms around in your lap, nuzzling his scent gland across your throat and shoulders, and you chirr your satisfaction at him. Ain’t nothin’ like being claimed by your best friend—sets you feelin’ safe and secure and _home_ more than just about anything. “Let’s go find the rumpusblock and get some books. I miss reading—and it’ll help us with our English, too.”

“You got it, bro,” you agree—wonder briefly if you can get a copy of the Book in English. Doubt it. Before you get up and go, though—“Just one last thing, first. Won’t take but a second.”

You push your brother down gently, lay him out on his back in front of you and settle yourself over him. He huffs at you, but he’s already tipping his chin back to show his beautiful throat, resting his hands on your shoulders and not makin’ a single move to hide the great soft spot of his belly—his body tellin’ at you exactly what you want to hear, _I’m yours_ and _you’re safe to me_ and _I won’t leave nor will I fear._

You get a real actual rumble of a purr in your chest, then, and duck your head down to claim your own palemate. Nuzzle your scent all across his hair and his face and his neck, claws kneading happily at the floor beside him. He chirrs soft and sweet at you, petting his hands from your shoulders to yours sides, tracing his claws along your grubscars. Holy _fuck,_ you got a want to pile him now.

But brother _did_ up and want his books, so you gotta relent.

You lean back from him and help him to his feet, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Now, then, best friend—where ought we start our search for this motherfuckin’ rumpusblock?”

The two of you then proceed to go on a journey of Epic Motherfucking Proportions, sneaking your way through the whole entire base and dodging adults and humans and unfamiliar wigglers the whole entire time. You think you catch a glimpse of that big sister Nuodel once, and you flick your ears friendly at her. Better to be staying on the adults’ good sides, especially when they’re _that_ big.

Once you find the rumpusblock, your little brother sets about picking out a couple books for himself. You take a gander at all the movies, instead, tryin’ to see if there’s any he’d like as to watch tonight. Something that’ll entertain him enough to let him relax around Nepeta and Equius, hopefully. You get your idea on that a few might be good enough, but you can’t do anything settling for sure without your other friends’ say-so. 

The good news is that your other friends are more than happy to watch those movies with you, come morning. The four of you have a bitchin’ good time playing strange human board games and watching movies and eating popcorn by the motherfuckin’ handful. Equius is still haughty as all shit, and you see it rankles on Karkat—but you get an arm around his shoulders and nuzzle into his neck and chirr sweetly for him, and he relaxes his little self enough to enjoy the morning. The last movie you watch you picked special for him, though you know Equius and Nepeta oughta enjoy it, too. They’ve got a cute motherfuckin’ diamond goin’ on. 

The film’s about these two most serendipitous pale motherfuckers, see. One of ‘em is a snarky violetblooded seadweller, and her little moirail is a stubborn-ass yellowblood, and the two of them gotta be learning to get along and appreciate each other for their vast differences. Violet crashes into a rage there near the end, and the yellow does have to summon his courage and believe in himself and his duty as a moirail in order to pacify her. When the time comes for them to be conscripted into the fleet, the violet makes an awful touching argument as to let the yellow stay with her on one of the seadwellers’ ships. It’s accepted, of course, and the two of them live happily ever after among the stars, fighting for the glory of the Empire.

What’s important, though, is that there are some _hella_ good piling scenes. Nothing _too_ explicit, but enough to have your tiny palemate leaning against you, tracing his nose against your throat and breathing in your scent. Startin’ to smell pale for you already, pheromones tinting his own scent easy and warm. Across from you, Nepeta and Equius are smellin’ awful pale, too. It’s—nice. It’s real nice, knowing all around you are soft and safe. You bask in it a little while, the four of you letting the credits roll longer than you ought—but then you stand up, offering your best friend your hand. 

“It’s been a mighty fine morning, siblings,” you say, flashing Nepeta and Equius a bright smile. “We oughta do this again sometime. But I’ve gotta get this little motherfucker off to ‘coon—you recall how grouchy he can get.”

“I do indeed recall,” Equius says, his voice stiff—but not as stiff as usual, you notice. He’s got a hand wrapped around Nepeta’s waist, holding her close. “Have a good day, the both of you.”

“Yeah,” Nepeta says, grinning up at you from the couch, her fluffy blue tail flicking contently. “Have an awesome day, you guys. We’ll see you tomorrow night.” 

“See you, asshats,” Karkat mutters—it’s not exactly polite, but it’s better than nothin’, you figure. He stomps his way back upstairs, tugging you along with him—ever caught in his tide, you are, and there ain’t no better place to be. As soon as you’re in the right hallway (mercifully free of adults, this late in the morning), you scoop him up. He don’t even hardly gripe at you, and that’s when you know you’ve got him—got your palemate well and truly in the mood, and hell, you are gonna _pile_ this most pitiful motherfucker like you ain’t never piled before.


	15. taste his heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: panic attack, blood/minor injury, baaad coping mechanisms (one of which could be considered sort-of-incidental self-harm if you squint)
> 
> chapter track: "agape" by bear's den

Gamzee may be denser than the singularity at the center of a supermassive black hole, but he can be _manipulative_ when he needs to be. He’s been flirting with you this whole damn morning and you had literally not a single clue (but of course you’ve never been known for your cunning, then, have you, Vantas?) until the first piling scene came on in that last film. _Then_ you caught a clue—not in the least because Gamzee was snuffling greedily at your neck, _soft-pale-warm-love_ pheromones drifting up from his skin in thick waves. Then he had the gall to rope Nepeta and Equius into it, too—fucking _hell,_ but he’s shameless. At least he had the decency to quit after that film, lest the four of you dissolve into a pale orgy. 

Now, however, you find yourself alone in a block with this unwittingly clever bastard, and you’re doing your best to gripe at him but it’s just—so— _hard._ He’s too soft and sweet and cute, fuck him, seriously. It’s not _fair._ It’s like trying to be mad at a baby barkbeast.

“You smell awful good, little brother,” your clever bastard murmurs, clinging to you like a wet paper towel, mouthing at the edge of your jaw. For a moment, you’re overcome with the urge to mark him again—which is fucking _stupid,_ because he’s still got your scent spread thickly across his skin. Then he opens his big goddamn trap again and coaxes you, “C’mon, best friend. I’m yours, aren’t I? Wanna feel like it, c’mon now—”

And you are so fucking _weak_ to him. You rattle off a little growl out of habit but twist your head around anyway, rubbing the crook of your jaw across his throat and shoulder and chest—anywhere you can reach without moving out of his arms. He thrums a soft, satisfied purr at you and your pan is so fucking _overjoyed_ to have gotten that noise out of him. You want more. You want _so much more._

You push him backwards—would topple him into a pile, if you had one, but you grudgingly settle for trapping him against the wall instead. He threads his arms around your neck and bows your foreheads together, and you slip your hands beneath his shirt to run your palms hungrily against the cool skin of his sides and stomach. A shiver runs through him and you croon on instinct—croon comfort and assurance and practically preen when he slumps against you. 

“Best friend—best friend, we oughta talk.” He slides his hands up to cup the nape of your neck, and the feeling washes over you like a blanket of safety. It’s irrational as shit, but the primitive part of your thinkpan is convinced that nothing can hurt you, with his bony, cold self covering your softest parts. “You wanted a jam, didn’t you? Wanted to talk about Sollux again—”

“It can wait,” you insist, leaning up to bite at the corner of his jaw, taste his scent against your tongue. He groans and gathers you close, nuzzling his scent across your hair and horns. You don’t want to think about Sollux right now—fuck, you don’t want to think about anything but you and your stupid, adorable flirt of a moirail. “Just want you right now. You big jerk—if you wanted a pile, you didn’t have to manipulate me into it. You could’ve just _asked.”_

He chuckles at you, low and rough. “Aw, now, but where’s the fun in that? I like seeing a brother get himself so riled for me—and ‘sides, Nepeta and Equius seemed to be enjoying it, too.”

“You big _pervert.”_ You growl at him, reaching up to grab the middle of one horn, tugging his face lower so you can kiss him, kiss his cheeks and lips and nose and eyebrows. Throw in a nip here and there, because _seriously,_ the nerve of this bastard. He grins at you, settling his hands on your hips to hitch you closer, then scoops you up. You squirm, winding your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist, and he slips one arm under your ass to hold you up, bracing his other hand flat against your back.

“Missed you, best friend,” he says, nuzzling against your shoulder. You cup a hand against the back of his head, feel the soft, dense hair of his undercoat tickle your palm. “Missed you so much—I love having you like this, palest brother, littlest most precious motherfucking diamond—”

You duck your head, mouthing softly at his throat—brush your fangs across his pulse and feel the rumble of a low moan in his chest as he tilts his head back for you, horns clicking against the wall. “Nothing to miss,” you say, pressing a soft kiss to his skin. Your hands slip down to knead at his scrawny shoulders, careful not to prick him with your claws. “You’ve _had_ me, bulgelicker. I haven’t gone anywhere. We’ve been attached at the hip for the last seven perigees, honestly—”

“Not enough,” he says, his voice choking around a little chirr as you bite softly beneath his chin. “Can’t ever get enough of you, little brother, especially not like _this—_ having you so soft and pale for me—” He slides the hand on your back upwards, until he can cup the back of your head, his fingers brushing _just_ beside the roots of your horns. “Can I, brother? Can I, please—”

You want so _badly_ to crumple for him—and you know ordinarily you’d jump at the chance, greedy shitstain that you are. You adore being at his mercy, his to have and hold and protect, and it’s been so _long_ since you’ve gone under _._ You haven’t submitted to him, not truly, since your lusus died. It had never felt safe enough, not on the ship. To be that weak, helpless to defend yourself _or_ him from the guards if they found you—

A cold little shiver runs down your back. Gamzee must feel it, because he croons his concern at you, fingers slipping away from your horns—you feel a wave of regret at that, but even stronger (even more _awful)_ is the wave of relief that follows.

“Sorry,” you gasp, pressing hard against him, burying your face in the safety of his shoulder. “Shit, sorry, I’m not—I want—”

“Shh-shh-shh, little brother.” His voice is soft and sweet, his hand rubbing soothing circles between your shoulders. “It’s alright, hush now. Don’t get yourself worked up. What’s the matter, hm? Somethin’ scaring you?”

You shake your head, biting back the pathetic whine that tries to rise in your throat. “No—no, I was just—thinking—” You tip your head back, show him your throat and press your horns back against his fingers. “Please? Please, I don’t want to think—”

Gamzee hesitates, but you offer him a pleading whine and he breaks for you, just like you knew he would. He curls his fingers back around one of your horns, kneads firmly down into your hornbed, and for a moment you feel a blissful flare of relief—your legs shiver and relax, your eyes flutter shut, a warm swell of _safety_ and _home_ blooming in your chest, and you are so—fucking—

—helpless. You’re helpless. Weak and helpless and defenseless and suddenly you can see your lusus’ hard carapace (he had been safety and he had been home and he had been _broken)_ shattered by something big and awful, pools of scarlet blood flooding across the hive you designed yourself. You can see your Gamzee, shaken and bleeding and helpless to defend himself or your lusus, and you _hadn’t been there._ Everything had been broken, and you were not there to fucking _defend,_ and hideous black grief is rearing its head again, grinning at you with all its broken fangs—you reach for your anger, for that which defends you against the vast hell of your hopelessness, and you can’t find it.

Fuck. _Fuck fuck fuck._

“Karkat? Karkat, little brother, hey, it’s okay—” Gamzee yanks his fingers away from your horn, leaving a cold spot where he was. A terrified whimper chokes in your throat and you struggle in his arms, though your limbs feel heavy and weak and how are you going to defend yourself, how are you going to defend _him—_ “What’s wrong? Fuck, what’s—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, shit, I’m so sorry—”

You force your eyes open and the dim green light is blinding, your pupils swollen with terror. Gamzee slides down to the ground, bundling you tightly in his lap. Your sides heave against his arms and they feel like steel bars, like iron, like _traps—_

You make a helpless, terrified sound you’ve never heard from yourself before—something you imagine you’d use towards a troll hellbent on murdering you, all _pleasedon’t_ and _surrender_ and _sorrysorryi’msorry—_

Gamzee makes a cracked, pained little sound in return and releases you. You scramble out of his lap, stumbling onto your feet. Your knees feel unsteady, your muscles cold and weak. Your heart thunders beneath your ribs, your blood rushing loudly in your ears. This place is not your own. This place is not _safe._ You can smell adults all around you, smell unfamiliar wigglers and soft-salt-humans and everything is strange and unfamiliar and _bad._ There is only one good thing here, and right now you are helpless to defend him, and you are so _fucking terrified_ of what’s going to happen when someone takes him from you.

You stagger towards the door, your claws itching. You have to make this place _yours._ You have to keep every other creature _out,_ no matter what. You won’t let anything hurt him, you won’t, you fucking _cannot—_

You stretch up as high as you can when you reach the door, digging your claws into the soft wood beside it and tearing them down. Leave eight jagged clawmarks in your wake to warn away your enemies, but the marks aren’t _tall_ enough, they’re not _deep_ enough, because you are so small and _weak—_

You stretch up again, pushing up onto your tiptoes to make yourself seem bigger, and drag your claws down the wall again. Splinters catch and stick under your claws and you hiss, your body shaking with the effort it takes to fight off instinctive submission. It wants to be weak, it wants to be helpless, it wants to let your palemate _die_ and you _will not allow—_

Behind you, there’s a soft sound, a shard of clarity through your fuzzy, frantic thoughts. Your palemate. Your palemate is speaking—no. No, your palemate is _shooshing._ It’s a low, familiar sound that grabs your pan and rattles it. Feels like a wave of cold water being splashed in your face. Feels _right._ It makes you want to return to him, curl up in his lap and— _no!_

You snarl at him, though it’s weaker by far than you want it to be, and prowl to the next corner. Stretch up and gash your claws down that wall, too. Blood trickles down your fingers, makes the worthless submissive part of your pan want to whimper and roll over and plead to be taken care of because it _hurts_. 

You are going to _tear that part of you out._

And then there are arms wrapping around you, steel bands and traps, pulling you back away from the wall. A rolling, chittering warning growl rises in your throat and you thrash, twisting your head to snap your teeth at your palemate’s shoulder. He doesn’t _understand._ He’s soft and sweet and yours to protect and now you _can’t,_ fuck—

“Shh, Karkat, best friend, _shh,”_ he’s murmuring against your ear. He sounds scared. It prods at that terrified, helpless part of you even more. If he’s scared that means he’s in danger and that means you need to be strong enough to _shred that fucking danger_ before it lays a single claw on him. “Easy, hush now, it’s alright. Nothing here to hurt us, nothing here to intrude, little brother, _shh,_ now. I’m here, I’ve got you, won’t let anything hurt you— _never,_ little brother, never fucking ever—”

You can’t stop the growl rattling in your throat—can’t fucking _breathe_ through your terror, and you set your claws against his forearms, a warning. You could shred him. His skin is just as wiggler-soft as yours—doesn’t have a highblood hide yet, but he doesn’t even bother flinching away from you. There’s already a wide, pale scar across his wrist, a testament to your previous _failure._ You could tear this troll apart, couldn’t you? Slit him from abdomen to throat, taste his heart, just like you did with that lusus who killed your crabshitter. He’s just so—fucking— _soft,_ and you are overwhelmed with it. How the _fuck_ are you going to take care of this much precious softness?

Well. For starters, you move your claws away from the pulsing veins of his wrists.

“Theeere we go, little brother,” Gamzee murmurs, resting his forehead against the back of your neck. “That’s it, that’s a good job. You’re okay, we’re okay, the both of us. Ain’t a thing gonna harm us here, love. We’re safe.” He takes a deep breath, then sighs it out in a quiet, deep shoosh. You shudder, baring your teeth and squeezing your eyes shut. You don’t want to. You don’t want to be in that soft, vulnerable spot in your pan anymore. You can’t, you can’t, you fucking _can’t—_

“Stop,” you rasp, your claws kneading desperately at your jeans, leaving bright red streaks against the fabric. “Stop. Don’t—”

Gamzee snaps his mouth shut, teeth clicking behind you. You whine. “Sorry,” he says, his voice fervent—scared, again. “Sorry, little brother, I—what do you need? What can I do?”

You don’t _know,_ and that’s the thing. You don’t know what the fuck is going to make this better, if your palemate’s gentle shooshing just makes it _worse._ The one thing that’s supposed to help, the one thing that’s supposed to make everything _okay,_ and now that’s been taken from you _too—_ a snarl rolls up from your throat and you bare your teeth at fucking _everything._ You can feel your anger (genuine, righteous fury, now, and not just that petty terror-rage you loathe) coiling back up in your chest, driving back your hopeless fear and grief. 

It is a fucking _relief._

“Let go.” You push at Gamzee’s arms and he relents, though he whines up after you, watching nervously as you pace the room. “This is such— _fucking bullshit,_ what the _fuck—”_

“What is, best friend?” Gamzee asks, his voice coaxing and gentle. You can’t fucking _stand_ it. You don’t need gentle, you don’t need soft, you need him to be strong and fierce and _safe._ He could take of himself, right? He’s an idiot but he’s still a highblood (and doesn’t that scare you just as much?), he could defend himself if he had to. (But he couldn’t save your lusus, and he can’t save you. Who’s to say he could ever save himself?)

“I want to fight,” you say, your voice suddenly hard and sure. “I want to fight with you.”

Gamzee flinches back from you, and your heart twists painfully—but you ignore it, flattening your ears at him. “Brother, I don’t—”

“The training blocks. We need to learn, we need to practice—it’s been too long. We’re _weak._ If someone wanted to hurt us we couldn’t do anything to defend ourselves.” You pace the length of the block, your claws twitching and your chest heaving. “We’d be helpless. We’d just—roll over and die. I’m not going to let that happen to you. Let’s go to the training blocks.”

“Okay,” Gamzee says, after an awful pause—you relax some. You’ll learn. He’ll learn. He’ll learn to fight, to defend himself, he’ll be okay—“Tomorrow, best friend. We’ll go tomorrow. It’s too late in the day right now, and look—you’re bleeding. Let me fix you up?”

He looks plantitively at you, eyes still big and scared, and you want to recoil from him. You hate that you want to recoil from him—fuck, you love him _so much._ But you don’t want to be _fixed,_ you don’t want to be _soothed._ You want this anger. It’s the only thing keeping you both safe. “Fine,” you bite out. You’re not mad at him. You’re not, you’re _not._ “We’ll go tomorrow. Get to ‘coon. I can clean myself up.”

“Best friend—”

It’s instinct for you to snarl at him, rolling your jaw back to show him all your fangs because how _dare_ he _threaten_ your palemate by pushing you to relax. You know it doesn’t make sense, fuck, you know. It’s not like someone is going to burst through the door to slaughter you right that second. (You hope. That’s what happened to your lusus, though, isn’t it? Senseless violence. _Senseless.)_ But _fuck him_ if he thinks you’re going to relax, fuck him if he thinks you’re going to let _anything_ hurt him—not himself, not your own petty weakness, not _anything._ “I _said,_ get in your ‘coon and leave me alone.”

For a minute, you think he’s actually going to listen to you. He shrinks back, eyes stinging with hurt, and you feel fit to choke on your guilt. Better that than let him make you weak, though. Better that than let him die because you weren’t enough to protect him. You turn your back so you won’t have to look at him anymore, curling your claws into your palms. Hear him move, climbing to his feet, and figure he’ll obey you, the way he always does.

He does not. Go fucking figure.

“No, best friend.” His voice is hard. When you glance back at him, his ears are pinned and his jaw is set. “I’ll oblige you on many a thing, but not on this. I won’t let you be hurt without my trying to fix it. If you don’t want me touchin’ you, don’t want me gettin’ up in your business, I’ll bide. But I’ll watch while you clean those wounds up. You need to take care of my motherfucker the right way, if you’re not gonna let me do it.”

“I know how to take care of myself, you shitfucking—”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean you’re gonna _do it,_ now does it, motherfucker?” he says, raising his voice to talk over you. You growl at him and he flashes you his fangs and growls back. For a second, you have to pause and let yourself be startled (highblood, that’s a highblood growling at you, _shit.)_ . It’s not often your sweet, dopey palemate has the nerve to _growl_ at you, deep and rumbling and so much scarier than he actually is—and when he _does_ have the nerve, you’ve never managed to talk him down. Stubborn fucking motherfucker, fuck. 

At least he’s managing to stand up for what he wants. Rare, that.

“Fine,” you snap, your terror making you terse, stomping towards the ablutions block. “Since you clearly don’t _trust_ me, you can—”

“Do not talk at me about _trust_ right now, littlest motherfucker, _”_ he says, his voice low and unhappy as he follows you into the block. You grind your teeth and jam your hands under the faucet, letting cold water blast the blood away from your claws and fingertips. “Do not talk to me about anything so vital while you’re pissed and set not to let me soothe. Won’t end well for either of us.”

You know he’s right. You know you’ll just end up arguing, with you this mad (and not even _at_ him, fuck, what are you _doing?)_ and him unable to do anything about it because you’ll flip your shit like the fucking coward you are. So you grind your teeth and hold your goddamn tongue for once, focusing on plucking the splinters out from under your claws. Your fingers shake. Human walls were not made for clawmarking, so it would seem.

Gamzee lets you fumble with the last few splinters for a solid five minutes (he’s always been more patient than you) before he reaches out and snags your hand. You growl at him and he squeezes his fingers around your palm. “That’s enough, now,” he says. Has the gall to sound _disappointed._ “I ain’t gonna hurt you, motherfucker, but we’re gonna be here all day at the rate you’re goin’. Let me help.” His mouth twists in an awful parody of his usual smile, grim and bitter. “Not gonna settle you down, don’t worry. You tell me to ignore my motherfucking duty as your moirail and so I will, best motherfucking beloved.”

Your face burns with fury as he sets about picking the last of the splinters out of your skin—burns with fury and with shame. You don’t want to upset him. Fuck, that’s the last thing you want. None of this was his fault, he shouldn’t be hurting because of it, because of _you,_ but you’re just so _scared,_ and you can’t—can’t let him—

You suck a breath in through your teeth, squeezing your eyes shut. He pulls one last splinter from your finger and then eases your hands back under the water. It’s warm, now. You wonder when he changed it. You smell the sharp, clean scent of soap before he scrubs it across your fingers, gentle but brisk. Keeping his word. 

“There,” he says, wrapping your hands in a soft towel. “Done. I’m gonna wash my face.”

You take that dismissal for what it is and slink out of the block, holding your hands close to your chest. Your anger is fading already, but thank god, thank _god,_ there’s no awful grief or terror surging in behind it. Your muscles feel warm again, your legs strong, your claws sharp. You can carry yourself. You can fight. That knowledge alone soothes the tight knot of fear in your stomach. 

With the absence of anger, hower, there is a sudden wellspring of regret.

Past Karkat is so _fucking_ stupid. 

You tear off your clothes, flinging them into a corner along with the towel, before yanking on a pair of clean boxers. Then you brace your back against your recuperacoon and crouch, burying your face in your hands. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. You snapped at your moirail. You _snarled_ at your moirail. You are the worst. You are the worst, most abusive, most terrible, awful piece of shit scumbag moirail on Earth. He should break up with you. You dragged him all the way across the universe just to treat him like trash, _fuck._

Your breath is ragged and wet when you suck it in. Your eyes sting. He just wanted to make you _happy._ He was so content not even half an hour ago, and then you had to go and _ruin_ it. Why couldn’t you have just let him pile you like a normal fucking troll? Why do you have to go and make a big deal out of _everything?_

...kinda like you’re doing right now. Shit. God, you hate yourself.

You hear the ablutions block door creak back open and scrub your wrist across your eyes before glancing up at your palemate. He glances back at you, his face resigned, ears drooping. You did that. You and nobody else. “Hey,” he says softly. “Gonna—go to ‘coon now. I’ll see you in the evening?”

You can’t. You can’t let him go to ‘coon sounding that sad. You’d rather tear your own heart out. Instead, you open your arms to him. “C’mere,” you whisper, your voice an awful rasp. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, please c’mere—”

Gamzee doesn’t hesitate at all—he’s moving towards you before you’ve even gotten the second word out, sitting down and dragging you into his lap. His hands run hungrily across you, desperate, and you wrap your arms around his neck and hold him close. Press a soft, dry kiss to his throat and let out a shuddering breath. 

“Karkat,” he mumbles, rocking you slowly. “Karkat, oh, Karkat. I’m sorry, best friend. I didn’t mean to scare you so. Won’t ever do it again, I swear, don’t ever wanna hurt you like that—”

“No, no, hey—” You slide your hands up to cradle his face, brushing the sore pads of your fingers across his bare skin. “It wasn’t your fault, okay? None of it. I’m sorry I got angry at you—it wasn’t anything you did, I promise. None of this whole fucking shitfest is your fault, Gamzee.”

“I scared you,” he insists, bowing his head against yours. “I did. I was too pushy—I should’ve just asked, instead of setting everything up, I motherfucking—”

“No, seriously—” You bonk your forehead against his. “I—that was—it wasn’t because of the movie, or because of Equius and Nepeta, or because of _anything_ that happened tonight, okay? It was maybe—maybe a little bit because of the submission thing, but neither of us knew that was gonna happen. It was just a freak accident, Gamzee.” You lean forward, touch the tip of your nose to his, let your lips brush. “Please don’t blame yourself.”

Gamzee sniffles, and when he meets your eyes his are glassy and feverish bright with dilute purple tears. “You either, best friend. It wasn’t your fault either. Like you up and said—neither of us knew, yeah? Just an accident. Just a motherfuckin’ awful accident.” He pushes forward, scatters clumsy kisses from your lips to your jaw. 

“I—got angry, I snapped at you—”

“You were scared. It’s okay, best friend.”

“I—”

“It’s _okay.”_ He squeezes you tightly. “I ain’t mad at you, little brother, so you don’t gotta be mad at yourself, either. We’ll work through it together, yeah? What—what _happened?”_

You shake your head. “I—god, fuck, I don’t know.” You rub your forehead against his shoulder, groaning. “Can we think about it later?” Gamzee hums unhappily, petting gently down your back, so you pull your trump card: “‘m tired, Gam. My head hurts. I can’t think about this shit now or my brain’s gonna explode all over you in a big goopy awful mess. Nasty. Nasty brain juices everywhere and you’ll have to clean them up.”

Gamzee huffs out something that’s _almost_ a laugh, and you feel a little lighter. “Tomorrow morning we gotta jam, right after dinner. No more putting it off,” he says, and you can’t protest. Figure that a jam is the least he deserves, after the shit you’ve put him through. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” you say, burrowing closer. “Okay.” 

Gamzee chitters softly, approvingly, and hitches an arm beneath you so he can stand, cradling you against his chest. You drape yourself over him like an unhelpful towel, and for a second you miss his goddamn curls fucking _fiercely._ They were good to bury your face in, at times like this. Rough and fuzzy and they smelled like _him._

“Wanna go to ‘coon with you,” you mumble, hugging your arms tight around his neck. Gamzee makes a low, satisfied sound of agreement. He pops a vitamin into your mouth, then one into his own, and carries you over to his ‘coon. He lowers you gently into the slime and you open your arms for him, wrapping yourself around him as best you can when he climbs in after you. Yours. Yours to keep, yours to protect. 

In this, you cannot fail.


	16. the first death of gamzee makara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mentions of death/violence, icky alternian castism, emotional abuse/manipulation (outside of the main ship), drowning (+ all the ensuing panic), nuodel twisting clown religion to make it fit her agenda, brief gory thoughts
> 
> chapter tracks: "cog in the machine" from the world of goo ost, "glory-bound" by matt hires

Karkat’s foot slams into your purple club with a resounding  _ crack,  _ a blow hard enough to numb your fingers. Purple flies across the training block and into the far wall with yet another  _ crack,  _ and you flinch sympathetically for it. Poor little fella. Your brother’s not being easy with it. Check that, your brother’s not being easy with  _ you— _

You stumble backwards as he lunges at you again, his eyes blazing. His yellows are tinting towards orange, and you got a mighty want to soothe him—but you also got a feeling that might not work out so well. Makes you all kinds of nervous to think on, especially after yesterday morning. You can’t bring yourself to strike back at him, though, and that’s just riling him up more.

“Come  _ on,”  _ he snarls—drops to brace his hands on the floor and lashes out with those tricky feet again, hooking one behind your ankle and yanking your legs out from under you. You land on your ass with a heavy thump, wincing and trying to untangle your miles of scrawny limbs. He pounces on you before you can, pushing your shoulders back against the floor and pressing the dull edge of his training sickle against your throat. “Seriously? Dead. Again.”

“Ain’t no good at this, bro,” you tell him, pouting a little. This isn’t your idea of a fun time, and you’ve been going at it for nearly three hours now. You think this is probably the seventh time you’ve died. “It’s  _ booooring.” _

Karkat groans, flopping off of you and marching over to your club. He flings it back in your direction and you barely get a hand up in time to keep it from whacking you over the horns. “See? This is  _ exactly  _ my point. What would happen if someone  _ actually  _ wanted to kill you?”

You shrug. You guess you’d—die, probably? 

Karkat groans again—it’s higher-pitched this time, though, bordering on a screech. Reminds you of his lusus, when he does that. He doesn’t bother scolding you again, though; he just readjusts his grip on his sickle and stalks in your direction, every inch a predator. You whine and drag yourself back onto your feet. Already feel bruised all over, goddamn. Your brother is not a gentle creature outside of the pile.

Once he’s close enough, Karkat lunges at you—a furious fighter, he is, all fang and claw and glistening sickle-edge. He’s weaker than he was on Alternia (six perigees on a ship don’t do much for fitness) but he’s lithe as ever, already working on building his weight and muscle back up. It’s easy for him to duck and weave around you, keeping you off-balance with little blows until he can knock your feet out from under you and hook his sickle around your throat.  _ Again.  _ You hear his teeth grinding by your ear.

“I cannot  _ fucking  _ believe—” he starts, and then cuts off real quick, going tense against you. You catch the scent a second after he does—an adult. A minute later and the doors to the training block burst open, heavy footsteps echoing across the floor until they reach the mats. 

“Hey there, wigglers.” Nuodel grins down at you, her eyes gleaming. Her paint is pretty and smooth as ever. You bet yours is streaky with sweat already—you’d put on an extra coat of sealant this evening, but you doubt it’s done any good, with Karkat beating you around like a training dummy. “How’s your playfighting going?”

Karkat wrinkles his nose. He ain’t happy with your super awesome, well-thought-out epic training montage being reduced to  _ playfighting,  _ you know. “It’s great,” he says. Keeps his voice dry but calm. You gotta be proud of him for that. “Do you need something?”

“What, a fucker can’t just say hi to her newest trainees?” Nuodel asks, twirling something over her knuckles—a silver coin, you realize. Human money, nice and shiny. “But, as a matter of fact, I do happen to need something.” She catches the coin between her forefinger and her thumb, points it at you. The light glints across it. “I need you, little brother.”

You prick your ears up in surprise. Ain’t often someone needs you, aside from your best friend. “Me?”

“Yeah, you. Noir’s orders. We’ve got some training to do, now you’ve had time to settle in,” Nuodel says. 

“What kind of training?” Karkat demands, moving his sickle from your throat and standing up. He don’t hardly come up to Nuodel’s chest, tiny thing. You wonder if you’ll be big as her, one day. Man. You could do some  _ awesome  _ cuddles with Karkat, then. 

_ “Subjugglator  _ training, pipsqueak. No shitbloods allowed,” she says. Smirks at him. He glances away, but you can hear his teeth grinding. Makes something uncomfortable twist in your chest, and you adjust your grip on your club. “You’re to report to the medics’ office.”

“What for?” your best friend asks, shifting his weight warily. 

She shrugs. “Beats me. Go on down there and find out. Makara, with me.” She takes off striding across the training block, and you hesitate a long moment, glancing between her and your Karkat. What do they want with your palemate at the medics’ office? They gonna give him more shots? You should be with him, if that’s the case—

“Go on,” Karkat says, reaching up to pap the side of your face briskly. “We _ did  _ make an agreement with these guys. I’ll be fine. Troll me once you’re done with your weird clown training, okay? And try to learn something. Maybe she can teach you, since I can’t.”

You nod a little reluctantly, patting him between the horns. “‘kay, bro. And you let me know once you’re done in that office. Take care of yourself—” You duck down and kiss the tip of his nose. “Pale for you.”

He flushes that pretty color, showin’ off nice for you, and says in his grouchy voice, “Pale for you too.”

Even  _ he  _ can’t make a sweet thing like that sound sour. You grin at him before trotting after Nuodel. You hear his brisk little footsteps as he leaves, hear the door swing shut behind him. Feels—lonely, all of a sudden. You’re not used to being without him.  _ Haven’t  _ been without him, not for perigees. It’s like a big open space at your side, all cold and barren. 

You don’t like it at all.

You’re distracted from it right quick when Nuodel glances down at you, though. “The fuck’s up with your paint?” she asks.

“Ah—” You smile sheepishly at her. “Training. I can fix it right up—”

“You’d better. Dishonoring the Messiahs looking like that, wiggler.”

You flinch at the thought, pulling your phone out so you can look at yourself in the camera. Your paint  _ is  _ smeared all to hell and back, so you decaptchalogue a container of white and get to touchin’ it up as best you can as you walk. Slather more sealant over the top once you’re done, for good measure.

“Good,” Nuodel says, nodding briskly once you’re done and unlocking a big, heavy door at the back of the training block. She ducks inside and you follow her. Door swings shut with a loud clang and a  _ click.  _ In front of you stretches—

Well, fuck. 

In front of you stretches a great big block with padded walls and concrete floors. The walls are stained in all shades of purple, from palest lavender to darkest plum. All  _ kinds  _ of equipment in here—some you recognize, like treadmills and clubs, and others you ain’t got the faintest  _ clue  _ of. What’s more alarming, though, is the sheer amount of  _ adults  _ in here. You’d always kinda wondered where they got off to, during the night, and now—

Well, now you know.

At least fifty purplebloods in this block alone, sparring and exercising and shouting happily at one another. It feels familiar. Like home. Like motherfucking  _ family.  _ You got a strong urge to go around knocking horns and chatting, all of a sudden, like these ain’t adults and don’t wanna rip your throat out ‘cause you’re smaller and weaker than they. Purpleblood sociableness in-fucking-deed. Karkat was right. It’s gonna get you killed, one of these nights.

You think you’d die awful happy, though, surrounded by so many of your siblings. 

“C’mere.” Nuodel wraps a hand around your arm and pulls you close to her, rattles off a growl and knocks her jaw against your head. You flatten yourself out for her on instinct—drop your shoulders and your ears, tuck lips over your teeth and tip your horns away. She nuzzles her scent roughly across your hair and face and shoulders, and it don’t feel at all like it should. When Karkat marks you, it feels like a claim, like somebody saying  _ you belong  _ and  _ I want you.  _

When she marks you, it feels like you’re bein’ owned. Feels—gross. Ain’t no way you’re gonna be fussing at an adult, though, so you just smile your dopey smile and let it happen. You’re real good at that.

“There,” she says once she’s done. Sounds satisfied, and you smell abhorrently like lemons and something low and sticky-sweet. “Siblings won’t lay tooth or claw on you, now. Not without my say-so.” She straightens up and sets her hands on her hips. “These are our subjugglator training rooms. They’re for keeping fit, sharpening your fighting skills, and practicing inquisition. No shitbloods or humans allowed, though, so if you want to do any  _ actual  _ inquisition you’ll have to wait until your turn in the inquisition rooms downstairs. We got a chapel, too—here.”

She leads you across the block, pausing to chat it up with a few other adults. They knock their horns together, flick fins and ears all friendly-like and chuff their greetings and you are motherfucking  _ jealous.  _ They look at you, talk about you over your head, but not a single one moves to greet you, and it makes you feel awful fuckin’ small. You’re mighty grateful once you reach the far side of the block—another set of huge wooden double-doors that Nuodel bursts open in one big shove.

Out in front of you, this time, spreads a serene little chapel. There are pews lined up and a big altar in the front. Tapestries in Messiahs’ most holy colors, brightest red (like your brother, you think, heathen thought though it is) and vibrant lime, cover the walls. More adult purples are dotted around in the pews or at the altars, heads bowed together in prayer. The air smells like must and reverence.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Nuodel murmurs, her voice low and respectful. You nod earnestly, your jaw slack as you look around you at all the  _ colors.  _ It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Well, besides Karkat, all limp and pale and sweet for you. You don’t think any-fucking-thing could be more beautiful than that. “This is where we worship. Come, now. We’ll say our prayers to Messiahs and then we’ll start your training.”

The two of you walk up the aisle to the altar and kneel at the steps. You bow your head most reverently, horns touching the stairs and hands folded in front of your chest. You pray. You pray that Messiahs give you wisdom to help your palest brother, to soothe what fear he’s got building inside of him. You pray that they give you the strength to learn from your motherfucking betters, to become a grand subjugglator and grant mirth to the Church and protect what’s yours. You pray you can bring them the glory they so deserve.

(You pray they forgive you for having messy paint and shaming them so, earlier.)

Once you’ve said your prayers, you and Nuodel rise and bow horns to the altar one last time. She leads you back out of the chapel and into the training room, her heavy black boots clicking on the floor. “We’ll start with basic exercise for now—you’re scrawnier than any purple has right to be,” she says. You can’t really contest that. You’re skin and bones, with an emphasis on bone. “Hop up on that treadmill. Run a couple miles and then we’ll stretch.”

You do as she tells you. She sure as fuck doesn’t make it easy, but she ain’t cruel with you. You’re panting and out of breath half the time, your body unused to so much fucking  _ movement  _ after all your time on the ship. Your muscles howl up at you,  _ what the fuck you doin’, man?  _ and  _ you fucking  _ idiot _ — _ but you ignore them as best you can and you run your two miles, huffin’ and puffin’ the whole damn way and trying your best not to throw up. The fact that you’re trying to impress all your purple siblings makes it a little bit easier.

The stretches are your favorite part, you decide soon after. They soothe your warm muscles right down, ease out your tensions and sore spots and you might be scrawny but you are still a damned bendy motherfucker. Even Nuodel is impressed, you think. After you’ve warmed up she puts you through a rigorous time—struggling against machines with hellish weights on them, layering yourself in sweatpants and sweatshirt and running  _ more,  _ trying your damnedest not to drop any free weights on your feet when you get to liftin’ those. 

Finally, after a small eternity that is really only two awful motherfuckin’ hours, Nuodel tells you you’ll do one last thing before she releases you. “C’mon, wiggler. You’re gonna do some swimming. Help you chill those muscles out.”

You follow her eagerly across the room, panting and drenched in cold sweat. You are more than happy to swim—you’ve always been good at it, almost-seadweller you, and there’s something soothing about the water. It reminds you of your lusus, a little, cold and calm. Nuodel  leads you into another block, across from the chapel. There’s a big pool in the center, and it’s hella fucking deep. You can’t even see the bottom, though the water’s sharp and clear up top. 

“This is our pool,” Nuodel says, puffed up a little proudly. “Five hundred feet down—made for deep pressure training, but we ain’t gonna start that with you, yet.”

You inch towards the edge of the pool, crouching down. The water’s far lower than the side. It’s a good twenty-foot dive down to touch it, you think. There’s a ladder off to the side, and Nuodel lowers it down for you. “So how long I gotta be doin’ this, sister?” you ask, because as much as you love swimming, you got a mighty need to check in with your little brother. He hasn’t trolled you yet, and it’s makin’ you kinda prickly.

Of course, that could also have somethin’ to do with the fact you ain’t had sopor nor food since this evening, and your body ain’t used to so much hard work on so little substance.

“Until I tell you to stop,” Nuodel says, taking a seat at the edge of the pool and swinging her legs. Her bootheels click against the concrete side. “Hop in there, wiggler. We don’t have all night.”

You obey, shedding your clothes save for your boxers, shimmying down the ladder and into the water. Fucking  _ blissful.  _ You chirrup happily, blinking your second eyelids across your eyes before submerging yourself beneath the surface. The water caresses your skin, sucks the achiness right out of your overheated muscles, makes the whole world soft and dark and muted. You could stay there all fuckin’ night, seriously. But you gotta know what your sister wants from you, you guess.

You pop your head up out of the water, grinning up at Nuodel. “Anything specific you want me to be doin’ in here, sister?” you ask.  

“Nope.” Nuodel hooks her claws into the ladder, pulling it back up and away from you. That—makes you a little bit nervous. You sink down to your chin in the water. “Just swim until you can’t anymore, and then I’ll pull you out.”

You—don’t much like the sound of that, but it doesn’t look the ladder is coming down anytime soon. You sigh a little, blow bubbles beneath the water and resign yourself to doggy-paddling for another hour. Forget what you said about Karkat’s training being boring. This is somehow even  _ worse.  _

After that hour’s up, though, you are getting mighty fucking tired. You’re already worn all to hell and back from Nuodel’s training, and your muscles are starting to burn and cramp. You end up sputtering water more times than you’d like. It ain’t salty, not like the sea—it’s sharp and mineral-y and unfamiliar. You dive down as far as you can just to entertain yourself, and the pressure is blissfully soothing on your muscles when you get deep enough. Can’t ever reach the bottom, though. Can’t even see it. 

You come back up coughing—stayed too long, that time. You try to float on your back a while, give your weary limbs a break, but you ain’t got enough fat to keep you up. Your horns ain’t helpin’, either. They keep dragging your head back under the water, and your neck burns with the effort of keeping them up. You flip back over and resume your weary treading. How much longer is she gonna make you do this…?

You glance up at her and she’s not even  _ watching.  _ She’s got her phone out, scrolling lazily through it while you struggle to keep your head above water. And okay, yes, you want to impress her, but you are fucking  _ exhausted,  _ here. “Big sister,” you call, bracing yourself against the wall as best you can—but there are no handholds, and your claws scrape uselessly across the concrete. There are, you realize kinda absently, a thousand more clawmarks along the waterline.

You are getting  _ mighty  _ fucking uneasy.

“What, wiggler? You about done?” she asks, glancing down at you. She looks bored. You feel a prickle of irritation and really fuckin’ wish you had some sopor right about now. “You’ve lasted longer than I thought you would. That’s the Makara bloodline for you, I guess.” She smiles wolfishly at you and you choke on a mouthful of water as your head slips below the surface again. When did your horns get so  _ heavy? _

“I want out now,” you tell her, beseeching as best you can. “I’m real motherfucking tired, big sister. Unless you want me drownin’, I—”

“You’re not gonna drown. Have a little faith in me, wiggler.” She waves you off, going back to her phone. “If you wanna stop, just—stop.”

You pant up at her. Your limbs feel sodden and heavy and you’re realizing, slowly, that you ain’t gettin’ out. You’re stuck. You are motherfucking  _ trapped.  _ Fear bubbles to life in your chest and you claw at the wall again, shrieks of noise as you grate white lines into the concrete. “Nuodel,” you gasp again. Your voice sounds panickier than you’d like, but you’re past caring. You think a little panicking is  _ warranted,  _ at this point. “Nuodel, the fuck are you doing? Let me out, I want out—”

“Are you trapped?” she asks, her voice breezy and unconcerned. 

“Fuck, yes, you have to let me out, motherfucker—”

She kneels up at the edge of the pool, looks lazily at you. Her eyes gleam purple and you have never feared that color so before. “It’s all that sopor, wiggler,” she says. Sighs all disappointed. “Ruined your ‘pan. You’re tellin’ me you’re trapped? Stuck here? No way out as far as the eye can see?”

“Yes!” Your voice would be a shriek, if it weren’t so raspy-tired. Your heart is thundering in your chest, your lungs gasping for air they only get half the time—the other half, you’re bobbing under the water, struggling to move your sluggish limbs enough to keep you afloat. How long has it been now? Sweeps, it must have been sweeps—“Help me, motherfucker, sister, big sister—”

“Help yourself, Makara,” she says, her voice cold as she turns away from you. As she motherfucking  _ leaves  _ your sight. “That’s the first lesson a subjugglator learns.”

You hear the door click shut behind her, and for a second, you are quiet and stunned. You’re going to drown. She’s going to let you drown here.

...what the hell is going to happen to Karkat?

You’re shouting, after that, but only for a couple minutes, before you figure out it’s a waste of precious breath. You’re choking more often than not, swallowing water and gagging it up in turn. You thrash, clawing and snapping at the water like it’s an enemy—and it always has been, hasn’t it? An enemy, full of seadwellers and monsters and things better off dead. The enemy what stole your lusus from you every chance it got.

You decide, then and there, that you fucking  _ hate  _ water.

You don’t know how long you struggle to keep your head above the water, gasping in reedy little breaths—not for you. For your Karkat. He can’t be left alone. Your Karkat, your moirail. He needs you. But there are some things even love cannot forstall—death being one of them. When you sink beneath the water for the final time, you are so terribly exhausted. Everything feels numb, a smear of awful, muffled sensation. Your thoughts are a white blur behind your burning eyes. You’ve never felt so heavy before, and you have been a burden every day of your life. You can’t believe you were so  _ stupid.  _

And that is the first death of one Gamzee motherfucking Makara.

Then, all of a sudden, you’re flat on your back on cold concrete and coughing your fucking lungs up. Nuodel is crouched over you, her ears pinned. You roll over and throw up the whole ocean and then some. Then you just kinda—lay down again, panting.

“Well, look at you,” Nuodel says, her voice dry. She’s blurry above you, pulling your boxers off and toweling you dry. Wraps you in a big towel, and you’re too weak to struggle against it. “You lasted quite a while—five hours, if you were wondering. Most wigglers only make it three, after that workout, and you’re pretty fuckin’ scrawny, too. So that’s not so bad for your first time.”

You stare at her. You think about dying. 

You think about killing.

“C’mon, then. We’ll try again in a couple of weeks. Get some more meat on your bones first.” She scoops you up in her arms, cradles you like you cradle your tiny palemate, and you feel sick. Your head drops against her shoulder as she carries you back through the training rooms and up to your floor. She opens up your block’s door like she fuckin’ owns the place, and you get a brief thought that  _ that  _ ain’t gonna make Karkat happy.

Unfortunately, Karkat’s not here. You get a little spike of feeling when you notice that: a flash of terror, bright and cold, and you twitch weakly in Nuodel’s arms. You make stupid, unintelligible sounds, but she must understand some part of them, because she says, “Your palemate’s fine. It’s dinnertime—he’s probably out eating. Just sleep it off, wiggler. You’ll feel better this morning.”

She settles you down into your ‘coon and the slime is  _ bliss.  _ You lean heavily against the side of the ‘coon as she rubs slime across your chest and back, and you stop movin’ your weary lungs as soon as you can, letting your skin suck in all the oxygen you need through the sopor instead. You are so fucking  _ tired.  _ Nuodel slathers sopor into your hair and over your horns, scrubs your paint off for you—and you would flush for shame, at that, at her seeing your bare face, but you don’t have the littlest bit of energy to devote to anything but surviving. 

“Now,” she says, cupping your face in her hands and patting your cheek. ‘s almost a pap. You think about biting her fingers off and swallowing them. “That was a pretty good little training session, for your first time. I know that last bit frightened you, but it’s normal subjugglator training. Every purple goes through it. So I don’t need you overreacting, understand? You weren’t gonna die. Aren’t ever gonna die under my watch.”

Somehow, you don’t exactly believe her.

“You’d best be careful what you tell that little moirail of yours. I ain’t gonna tell you you can’t tell him  _ anything,  _ but he’s a shitblood. Now I know you pity him something fierce, but you and I both know shitbloods are unreliable. You tell him about our training and he’ll flip his shit. They don’t understand us—they don’t understand the family, little brother. We’re trying to make you better—trying to make you strong and holy and fit for the motherfucking Messiahs. You get it?”

You don’t, but you figure that’s not the answer she’s looking for. You struggle to make yourself nod for her, back of your neck throbbing. 

“Atta boy.” She pats your cheek again and something poisonous and awful and  _ angry  _ turns over your chest. You reach for a handful of slime and swallow it down. Nuodel wrinkles her nose in disgust. “That’s another thing we’ll need to work on. Sopor rots your pan right out your ears—I’m not gonna let it ruin you anymore than it already has. You’ll quit eating it when it comes time for your first inquisition.”

She straightens up, pushing you back under the slime, and you curl up near the edge of your ‘coon. Stare numbly at her through the haze of green. You’re shivering all over—a terrible, uncontrollable thing that makes your fangs chatter. 

“Have a good morning, little Makara,” she says, patting the edge of your ‘coon. “I’ll see you in a few nights. Take care that that moirail of yours doesn’t overreact, because if he tries to take you away from the motherfucking family—” She smiles at you, all fang and no mirth. “I’ll rip his throat out myself.”

She takes her leave, after that. You burn. You contemplate her motherfucking  _ death  _ for threatening to lay hands on your moirail. You won’t let him be hurt. You won’t. You’d drown a thousand times before you let harm come to your beloved. You would slit a thousand throats, break a thousand horns, eat a thousand hearts. You would tear the fucking universe apart. 

You swallow another mouthful of sopor. You want your palemate so very much. You feel like you should probably be dying.

You guess you just sleep, instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this week is angst week apparently plz forgive me


	17. what makes a moirallegiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mentions of blood/violence, brief medical procedures (aka shots), brief self-loathing, a splash of panic (though not quite at panic attack levels)
> 
> chapter track: “once upon a time...storybook love” from the princess bride ost

You stumble back from the medics’ office just before morning, tired and woozy. The medics had, it turns out, wanted to suck a pint of awful red blood from your body. That revelation had been traumatic enough—the actual  _ act  _ of having your blood drained into a little plastic bag was exhausting and made you vaguely nauseous, both because seeing so much of your godawful blood made you sick with nerves and because, well, there went almost one-ninth of your blood supply. They said they were being  _ easy  _ with you, considering your iron levels weren’t up to par yet. If that was  _ easy,  _ you don’t wanna fucking know what happens when your iron levels are correct. 

What made it even worse was the fact that your moirail wasn’t with you—he was off doing god knows what with that supersized clown freak (you prefer your clown freaks in the mini version, thanks). When he still hadn’t trolled you by dinnertime you were practically frothing at the mouth with worry—but the medics kept you at bay in their office, eating their shitty snacks and making sure you weren’t gonna pass out. 

They gave you a single shot, too; not a vaccine, they said, just something to help your body make more blood. The syringe didn’t look like it had anything  _ in it,  _ let alone anything helpful, and they jabbed it right under the skin at the nape of your neck. Made you twitchy and snarly, that, but at least you have  _ some  _ semblance of control over yourself when you feel threatened, unlike a certain miniaturized clown freak. 

And you are  _ dying  _ to see the aforementioned miniaturized clown freak when you get back to your respiteblock, seriously. He  _ still  _ hasn’t trolled you. You’re hoping he just forgot. You march into your block ready to tear him a new one for making you worry, and then you kinda—stop, because he’s not here. Your heart sinks—no, fuck that, you heart  _ drops.  _ It drops like a stone thrown off of a skyscraper on a planet with ten times the gravity of Earth,  _ wham,  _ twenty pedestrians slaughtered, we made channel ten news—

You shut the door behind you, swallowing hard. Okay. Okay, your moirail is missing, you—

You pause, opening your mouth, sucking air in over your tongue. It tastes different. There’s another scent here, one you don’t quite recognize. Adult-scent, sickly-sweet lemons. A shudder rolls down your spine and you slink further into the block, claws curved at your sides. There’s a pile of clothes near the back of Gamzee’s closet. The ones he was wearing this evening. A sick, hollow feeling grows in your chest.

You stumble backwards, peeking desperately into both ‘coons before you  _ flip your fucking shit  _ and—oh. Oh, there he is.

Your palemate is curled up near the edge of his ‘coon, his normal sprawl of limbs tucked up tight against him. Relief surges through your chest upon seeing him safe and home and alive, but worry still gnaws at you. He looks fucking  _ exhausted.  _ His skin is pale, the bags under his eyes deeper and darker, a fine tremble rolling over his body in waves. Fuck. What the hell did that clown bitch  _ do  _ to him?

You reach in through the sopor to stroke your fingers across the arch of his cheek, the short fuzz of his hair, the smooth skin behind his ears. He turns his face hungrily into your touch but doesn’t wake—not that you figured he would. When he’s out, he’s  _ out.  _ Especially when he looks this goddamn tired. At least he doesn’t look injured. His skin is smooth and unblemished, his limbs whole and unbroken. There are a few pale purple spots on him you think might turn into some deep bruises later, but you suppose bruises are a fact of life with any sort of training. (Though it still makes you grind your teeth to think of that bitch laying hands on your moirail, let alone hard enough to bruise.)

You reluctantly pull your hand out of his ‘coon, wiping slime off on the side before ducking into the ablutions block and rinsing the rest off in the sink. You have to admit you’re a  _ little  _ disappointed—you had been looking forward to your morning jam. But what does that matter, when your moirail is worn to hell and back? Jams can wait as long as they need to. His health cannot. 

You spend the rest of your morning flipping through one of the novels you snatched from the rumpusblock and trolling John and Tavros. They’re both worried that Gamzee hasn’t answered them since this evening (it’s almost cute, that they care that much; almost), so you spend most of your conversation convincing them (and yourself) that he’s alright. John also sends you a snap of himself slouched over a pile of books and papers, pouting, with the caption  _ homework suuuucks!!! _

You send him a snap of your open novel (which is actually pretty damn good, so far, though the English is a pain in the ass to stumble through, and you spend just as much time thumbing through an online dictionary as you do reading) with the caption  _ IT CAN’T SUCK ANY MORE THAN YOU DO, EGBERT. YOU’RE KINDRED SPIRITS.  _

He replies with a snap of a deeper pout and several sad stickers. You snort and set your phone aside, curling up with your back against the outside of your ‘coon. You read until late in the morning, then finally force yourself to set your book aside and strip your clothes off before flopping into your ‘coon. You’re asleep within minutes—you guess getting your blood drained from your body makes that easier, at least. 

When you wake up the next evening, Gamzee is still sleeping, which is—unusual. Once you’ve finished your morning ablutions and dressed, you poke a hand into his ‘coon and feel for his pulse. You know. Just in case. He’s still alive, and he shifts towards you when you touch him, so that’s something. It’s still making you awfully uneasy, though. He’s slept—what? Fifteen hours, now? Unless he was up sometime during the day—

You worry your bottom lip with your fangs as you slip out of your block, intent on having breakfast ready for him when he wakes up. And if he doesn’t wake up soon, you’re  _ waking  _ him up, damn it. You need to know if your palemate is comatose or not. There are several purpleblood wigglers in the kitchen when you enter, and a couple of adults sprinkled in, too. Looks like you picked the breakfast rush hour—lucky you.

Fortunately, you’re too grouchy to be very afraid of them, right now. Besides, you think you’re starting to get used to this fucked-up living situation. Sure, they’re purplebloods and they’re awful, but they aren’t going to hurt you for fear of Gamzee’s retribution, and Noir’s and Nuodel’s by extension. So you shoulder your way through the crowd, snapping your teeth whenever one of them gets too close, and you manage to make two plates of eggs, toast and jam, and some kind of red-skinned fruit. An apple is what they’re called, you think. 

You carefully balance two bottles of orange juice in the center of the plates and abscond the fuck out of the bustling kitchen, letting out a breath once you’re away from so many other trolls. Purplebloods are, by far, the most social of castes—which seems like a grievous oversight to you, seeing as they’re  _ also  _ one of the most violent. But whatever, you guess. You’re not natural selection, so it’s not your call.  _ You,  _ at least, are of a caste (mutated or not) that evidently enjoys proper trollish solitude. 

You’re almost to the stairs when a hand touches your back and you jump a solid foot in the air, snarling in surprise and whipping around fast enough to send your juice bottles flying through the air.  _ Goddamnit.  _ And behold, one of the many banes of your existence stands in front of you, his ears drooping apologetically as he scrambles to pick up the bottles for you.

“Sollux,” you say, your words as sharp as you can make them. He winces. Good. “What the  _ fuck  _ do you want?”

He tentatively sets the juice bottles back on your plates, gnawing at his lips with those stupidly oversized fangs of his. “I just—wanted to see how you and GZ were doing,” he admits, shuffling his feet. God. He looks like a wiggler being scolded by his lusus. You turn and resume your marching towards the stairs so you don’t have to look at him. “KK, wait, please—I’m sorry, okay?”

“Fuck off.” 

He doesn’t even have to pick up his pace to keep up with you, goddamn him and his gangly legs. “GZ had his first training session yesterday, right? With Nuodel?”

You pause. His weapon always  _ has  _ been information, hasn’t it? Fuck. Sollux bumps into your elbow, sending your juice bottle wobbling off onto the floor yet again.

“Sorry, fuck, sorry—” 

“Asshole,” you growl at him, pinning your ears. “The fuck do you know about their training?”

“Not much,” Sollux admits, setting the juice down on your plate. You grind your teeth and stomp up the stairs.  _ Not much  _ isn’t worth staying around this jerk for. “But some! KK, I know some, please just listen—”

“Talk, then.” You whip around, a growl rattling in your chest. “Hurry the fuck up. Our food’s getting cold.”

“They have special training rooms,” Sollux blurts, talking so quickly it takes you a solid second to catch up with his words once he’s spoken them. “In the back of the normal training rooms, that door—past there is where the subjugglators train. A lot of it is basic exercise and sparring, but some of it is—is a secret, they don’t tell anyone, they’re not allowed to. I’ve never spoken to a lowblood who knew what went on in there, and not a single purpleblood has ever told me.”

“Gamzee will tell me,” you say—your moirail  _ hates  _ lying to you. You can only think a few times he’s ever done it in his life, and he always broke and fessed up shortly afterwards. 

“No,” Sollux says. “He won’t.”

You bare your teeth, hands tightening on the plates. You wish you could punch him, but that would mean dropping your breakfasts—and right now  _ food  _ ranks significantly higher than  _ yellow asshole  _ on your list of lifetime priorities.  _ “Fuck you,  _ you don’t know anything about what he will and won’t tell me. He’s my  _ moirail,  _ he  _ trusts  _ me—”

“I’m not saying he doesn’t—fuck, I know he does! He’s so in love with you it’s stupid,” Sollux says, slashing his hands through the air and giving you quite a thorough understanding on what the phrase  _ talking with your hands  _ means. “But don’t you  _ get it?  _ Nobody knows what goes on in there unless they’re a purpleblood, and you know what every purpleblood here has in common?”

“Purple blood,” you say dryly. Come on. He was  _ asking  _ for that one.

“Fuck you,” he snaps. “A  _ moirail,  _ dipshit. They all have a moirail, yet  _ somehow,  _ not a single one of those moirails knows any more about what happens in those training rooms than any other lowblood.”

“Yeah, well, they’re assigned moirails, aren’t they? It’s not the same thing—”

“Not all of them were assigned,” Sollux insists. “Some purplebloods came here with moirails, just like GZ did. They  _ love  _ their moirails, okay? But there are things that happen in those rooms they don’t tell  _ anyone.  _ I—”

“If they loved their moirails, they would tell them, dumbass. If they don’t, it’s not love.” You shrug, moving up the stairs again. Sollux pushes his way in front of you, blocking your path up. A growl rumbles in his chest, the air thickening with the smell of ozone as sparks flicker around his horns.

_ “You,”  _ he hisses, “are not the only person who knows what love means, KK. You are not the only person who gets to decide what makes a moirallegiance real or not.”

“Oh, like you would know?” You snort, rolling your eyes. “You, master romancer, with all of—what, zero?—quadrants filled. Yeah, like I’m gonna take advice from you. You can’t even pity your friends right.”

“One,” Sollux says, his voice cold. 

“What?”

“One quadrant filled.”

Oh. Oh now that  _ is  _ interesting. As much as you loathe his fucking guts right now (platonically!), his quadrants are still a thing of interest to you. To be fair, most quadrants are a thing of interest to you. What can you say? Romance is your motherfucking  _ passion.  _ And your friends’ quadrants are all the more important to you—which, fuck, okay, yes, you will grudgingly accept that Sollux is still your friend even if you’re hellishly fucking pissed at him. 

“One, huh?” you say, trying to make your voice a  _ little  _ bit quieter. Sollux relaxes some in front of you, ears flicking up from their pinned position. 

“Yeah,” he mutters, glancing down at his feet. He scuffs at a step with the toe of one shoe. “Diamonds. That’s—what I wanted to tell you, too. I told them your blood color to save myself, yeah, but I also did it for my moirail. She’s—sick, KK. She’s really sick. The money I make working here goes to her to help pay for her medicine. I couldn’t afford to lose that. I know it’s still just an excuse, but—” He glances up at you, his  eyes glowing a little brighter than usual. “What  _ wouldn’t  _ you do for your moirail?”

There is nothing. There is nothing you would not do for your moirail. You suppose you can’t blame Sollux for feeling the same, even if it’s at your expense—that would just make you the world’s most self-righteous hypocrite, wouldn’t it? You exhale softly, your shoulders slumping. “I really do need to get this food to Gamzee—”

“Oh. Right.” Disappointment flashes across Sollux’s face, but he steps aside, letting you trot up the stairs. “Tell him I said hi.”

“Tell him yourself,” you say, flashing him a glance over your shoulder. He hesitates, ears flicking like he can’t quite believe what he heard. “Well? Are you coming or not, bitch? You can’t just tell me you have a quadrant and then leave out all the fucking details, seriously.”

A wide, dumb grin spreads across Sollux’s stupid face and he races up the stairs after you. “I will give you  _ all  _ the details, KK.  _ All  _ of them.”

“I’m still mad at you,” you warn him.

“That’s okay.” He laughs, his eyes crinkling up around the corners and his forked tongue peeking between his teeth. “You can be mad all you want, just don’t—ignore me again, maybe?”

“I’ll consider it.” He opens your door for you, since your hands are full of now-lukewarm plates. You step inside, setting a plate down on each of your dressers before padding over to Gamzee’s ‘coon and leaning over it, intent on papping your silly moirail awake—only your silly moirail is gone. Naturally. Because when have things  _ ever  _ gone right for you? “Shit. Fuck, shit,  _ shit—” _

“What?” Sollux asks, his voice crackling with alarm. “What’s wrong? Is he—”

“He’s gone.” You click high and distressed in your throat. Seriously, you hadn’t even gotten to say good evening to him—they can’t have taken him off to train again already, they  _ can’t.  _ You need to  _ talk  _ to him, damn it. “Do they train every night? The subjugglators?”

“Not as far as I know—a lot of them do, but it’s on their own, not with Nuodel or any of the other trainers,” Sollux says.

A mantra of  _ fucks  _ plays through your head as you sniff around the room, trying to find out who was here and when. You smell Gamzee—fresh. There are sopor tracks on your floor. He was up and around before you got back, that’s for sure. The adult-scent is still here, but it’s old. Whoever it was  _ (Nuodel,  _ your hindbrain hisses, though you haven’t been close enough to familiarize yourself with her scent) didn’t return this evening. Maybe Gamzee had already set a time for another training session and hadn’t gotten the chance to tell you? But—he didn’t even troll you. 

Your chest hurts.

“Hey, did he know you went to get breakfast?” Sollux asks, his voice unusually gentle. You shake your head. “Then maybe he went to get some, or he went to find you. Do you want to go look for him?”

“Yeah—fuck, yeah, come on.” You bolt back out of your block, then skid to a stop because the sopor tracks on your carpet continue on the floor outside. They’re fainter, dried to a sticky tack, and they fade the farther they get from the block. You trot earnestly after them (dumbass didn’t even  _ wash  _ before he left,  _ honestly)  _ with Sollux at your heels. They lead you downstairs before they vanish completely, all the sopor evidently dried onto his skin or tracked off already. 

“Let’s try the kitchen first,” Sollux suggests, taking the lead and moving back towards the kitchen. You poke your heads inside, but all you see are more unfamiliar wigglers and adults—Nepeta is there, though, which sends a blaze of hope through you. 

“Hey, you—” You shove your way across the block to stand in front of her and she beams up at you, her tail swishing happily. “Have you seen Gamzee?”

“Good evening, Karkitty,” she chirps, bouncing on her toes. “I did, actually. He was here just a few minutes ago—he was looking for  _ you.  _ Isn’t that kinda silly? Why didn’t the two of you just troll each other?”

“Because—” Because you were freaking out and your stupid idiot brain didn’t think about it, that’s why. “Just because, fuck  _ off. _ ”

You stomp out of the kitchen again, whipping your phone out. You can hear Sollux making quick apologies for you (apologies which Nepeta just laughs off, ugh) as you tap out a most  _ scathing  _ message to your moirail demanding to know his whereabouts. A quiet, relieved sigh escapes you when he reads the message, but then he doesn’t  _ answer  _ you and you get right back to working yourself up into a frantic lather. He hates you, fuck, he hates you. This is all because you snapped at him the other morning, isn’t it? And now he’s breaking up with you by ignoring you and you can’t take a fucking  _ hint  _ and—

“Karkat!” Gamzee can be goddamn  _ loud  _ when he wants to be, and his shout yanks your attention around quickly enough to give you motherfucking whiplash. He’s bolting down the stairs at the end of the hallway, eyes wide and frantic, and you open your arms for him on instinct. He crashes into you hard enough to stumble you backwards, but his arms wrap around you and crush you to him and there’s no way you’re going to fall. He breathes in ragged, choppy gasps, shivering against you. “Karkat, Karkat,  _ motherfucker,  _ what the  _ fuck—” _

“Shh, shh,” you murmur, petting a hand softly across his side—fuck, he’s not even wearing a shirt, and his skin is still sticky with dried sopor. “It’s okay, Gamzee, it’s alright—where the fuck  _ were you,  _ you bulgemunch?”

Gamzee laughs, but the sound isn’t happy at all—it’s bordering on the verge of unhinged, actually, and you shift your gentle petting to more rhythmic papping. “Where was  _ I?  _ Where were  _ you?  _ I woke up and you were gone and I thought—I thought—” He chokes off, burying his face against the side of your neck with a ragged whine. 

You press your lips to his jaw and breathe out a soft, steady shoosh before glancing over your shoulder at Sollux. “I’m gonna deal with this, okay?” you say, a tad apologetically—you  _ had  _ wanted to hear about his moirail. But right now your own moirail needs you, and that means more than anything. “I’ll troll you later.”

“You got it,” Sollux says, flashing you a thumbs-up and inching back towards the kitchen—he looks nervous. You can’t say you blame him. “Good luck, KK, GZ.”

Gamzee whines at the sound of his name, clinging more tightly to you. His claws start to dig into your shoulders,  _ ouch.  _ You push him backwards, urging him back up the stairs and into your block. As soon as the door shuts beside you, he’s slumping down to the ground, pulling you into his lap and folding himself over you. He reeks of sopor and sweat and the sour tinge of fear, and you bring a hand up to cup his face. Pap softly, steadily, and hear his breathing hitch. 

“Hey,” you murmur, leaning your forehead against his. “Hey, it’s okay. I know you were scared, but I’m here now. We’re both safe. Shh-shh-shoooosh. What’s the matter, huh? Can you talk to me?”

“You were gone,” Gamzee gasps, squeezing you tightly enough that you swear your ribs creak. “I woke up and you were gone and I didn’t know where you were, brother, motherfucker, don’t do that, don’t ever do that—”

You press your lips to his temple, smoothing your fingers along his cheek. He’s not painted yet, either—it breaks your heart to imagine him panicking enough to forget that. His religion, bullshit though it may be, means more to him than most things ever will. “I won’t, not again, I promise—I’m sorry, Gamzee. I should have left a note or trolled you or something.”

“Yeah.” He sniffles pathetically at you, scrubbing a wrist across his eyes. “You should’ve.”

“I will next time,” you promise, scratching your claws gently through his sopor-crusted hair. He leans into you, his breathing slowing some as you continue to pet him. He’s still trembling, though—a fine tremor that rolls uncontrollably through his muscles. “Shit, I didn’t mean to scare you so much. I’m sorry, Gam.” 

“‘s okay.” He huddles closer to you, his hands kneading at your shoulders. “I missed you yesterday. Missed you a motherfuckin’ lot.”

“I missed you too, you big doof.” You hug him tightly, and he relaxes some, winding his arms around your waist and scratching absently at the small of your back. “How was your weird clown training?”

He stiffens again, kneading a  _ little  _ too hard at your shoulders—you wince and he jerks his hands back, clicking anxiously. “Sorry, best friend, sorry—”

“It’s okay. Seriously, chill out.” You lean up and kiss his chin, guiding his hands back to your shoulders. “Was it that bad?”

Gamzee opens his mouth. Shuts it again. Rests his chin on top of your head, and you hear his throat click when he swallows. “...no,” he says, hesitantly. “Wasn’t  _ that  _ bad, I guess. Just normal training is all. I mean, it wasn’t  _ easy,  _ either _.  _ Hard shit she wanted from me, bro. Hurts all over now.”

He sounds so  _ miserable  _ it makes you want to cry or cuddle him to death or maybe both. You make a soft, sympathetic sound and lean back, cradling his face in your palms. He rests his head heavily in your hands, breathing out a weary little sigh. “Just a sore kind of hurt, or are you injured?” you coax gently, guiding him to rest his chin on your shoulder. You wrap your arms around him, kneading your fingers into his back. He shudders and groans low in his throat, and you gentle your touch some. 

“Sore,” he mumbles. “Fuckin’ sore as shit, best friend.”

You croon gently at him, rubbing your fingers along the line of his spine. He winces at even your softest touch, whining miserably. “Okay,” you murmur. “Okay, let’s get you fixed up and then we can talk. Can you get up?”

He lets out a big sigh, like it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever asked him to do, and then he releases you and staggers to his feet. He leans heavily against his ‘coon, his head dropped and ears drooping. 

“Thank you.” You push into his space, press a kiss to his cheek as a reward for his obedience. He chirps quietly at you, eyes closed. “I’m gonna go get some medicine, okay? Pick out some clean clothes to wear after ablutions.”

He makes a soft sound of acknowledgement and you duck out of your block and down to the medics’ office. They give you a bottle of ibuprofen without much fuss, and you return to Gamzee as quickly as you can. He’s managed to pull out a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and he downs three of the pills without protest. You usher him into the ablutions block, but he flinches when you turn on the water.

“What?” you ask—he’s gone stiff all over, teeth gritted and ears pinned back. “Hey, what’s wrong? Look at me, c’mon—”

You coax him into meeting your eyes and his pupils are blown wide with fear. He licks his teeth anxiously, baring them at nothing in particular. “Hot as you can stand, brother,” he pleads. “Make the water hot.”

Worry burns in your chest, but you do what he tells you—turn the water on as hot as you think he can stand it and then ease him beneath the spray. He stays tense as you wash the sopor from his skin, gasping brokenly when you nudge his face beneath the water. The longer he stays beneath the spray, though, the more he starts to relax—as long as he can keep his face out of the water, that is. You turn him to face the trap wall, letting the spray pound down on his back and shoulders, and you go to work.

You knead your fingers carefully into his muscles, and he gasps and whines and clicks—half out of pain and half out of relief, you think, and you listen carefully to each noise. If his whines ever dissolve into little whimpers you ease your touch, avoid the spots that are still too sore for your tending. Slowly but surely the trembles leave his muscles, and you work your way over all of his limbs until you can get an actual chirr out of him by scratching softly across his back. 

“Better?” you ask, pressing a kiss to the damp skin of his shoulder.

“Mm-hm.” He peeks over his shoulder, eyes half-lidded and glassy. “A lot better, brother. Thanks a motherfuckin’ bunch. You got some goddamn miraculous little fingers.”

You snort, nipping his back gently before stepping out of the spray and unfolding a towel for him. He follows after you without any coaxing, letting you wrap him up and hug him tightly to yourself before toweling him dry. “Go put on some clothes,” you order him once he’s dry, briskly toweling yourself down as he slips out of the block to obey you. You dress, too, then tear all of your extra clothes off of their hangers and throw them onto the ground because  _ fuck it  _ you need a pile. Gamzee adds his own clothing to the pile, then curls up on it without prompting. You grab your plates of food and settle yourself down next to him.

He looks better, now. Not perfect, but—better. That alone soothes something in you. “So what did that bitch put you through to make you so sore?” you ask, and Gamzee flicks an ear lazily in your direction. He looks like he’s already half asleep again, goddamnit. You push a plate in his direction.

“Mm—exercise stuff,” he says, picking tentatively at the eggs. “Treadmill, weights, machines.” He pauses, then adds more quietly, “Swimming.”

“Eat that,” you say, pointing your fork at the eggs. He reluctantly jams a spoonful into his mouth—his eyes widen when he tastes them, and then he’s shoveling the food down in starved gulps. “Not that  _ fast,  _ c’mon, you know better. Did you eat at all yesterday?”

He hesitates, actually taking the time to  _ chew  _ his toast before replying, “Uh, yeah, motherfucker. Had lunch and dinner. What about you?”

“Same here.” You eye him suspiciously. What if Sollux was right? Is he...not telling you things? He’s squirming a lot under your gaze, focusing hard on his plate. “So. Swimming. How was that?”

He sinks his fangs into his apple and tears a chunk free with a vicious crunch. “Good, it was—yeah, good, motherfucker. Still pretty adept at swimming, me.”

You swallow a bite of your own toast, making an attempt at casual. “Yeah? You seemed nervous in the trap today. Did it have something to do with the water?”

He’s definitely squirming a lot, cramming his mouth full of apple so he doesn’t have to answer you right away. That’s—a little irritating. Doesn’t he  _ trust  _ you? The two of you are better than all of those other moirails. You’re  _ serendipity.  _ (Although you did snap at him yesterday, didn’t you? And he has every right to be mad, doesn’t he? Has every reason not to trust a piece of shit like you.) 

“Gamzee—” you start, twisting your fork uncomfortably between your fingers. 

“It reminded me of the old goat,” he blurts suddenly, then crams another bite of apple into his mouth, chewing noisily. You wait, and he chews faster under your stare. “The—the water did, I mean. When I was swimming, it reminded me of when he left, and I—freaked out. A little bit. That’s all.” He shuffles his hands together and doesn’t meet your eyes. “Nuodel thought I was overreacting. Fuck, I mean, I probably was—”

“Hey, no.” You reach forward, cupping his face. He leans into your palm, closing his eyes and sniffling slightly. You don’t doubt that the water  _ did  _ remind him of the goat, but this seems like something more. Maybe that’s just you being too suspicious, though? God, fuck Sollux, seriously. He’s made you paranoid. “You’re allowed to feel whatever you need to feel, okay? It’s perfectly normal for the water to remind you of that shitty old goat. That’s where you always spent time with him, right?”

Gamzee’s lips press into a thin line, and he nods gently.

“And Nuodel can fuck right off. Stupid jerk doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” you say, butting your head affectionately against his. “Sure, you’re dramatic and emotional as shit, but I  _ like  _ you that way, and anyway who thinks differently can take it up with  _ me,  _ the fucking bulgelickers. You wanna jam about the old goat, then?”

He shakes his head. You see his throat bob as he swallows, his claws clicking against his plate. “No. I’d rather not think about anything right now, best beloved. I’m awful motherfucking tired.” 

“Okay.” You pap him gently, though something still twists uncomfortably in your chest. But he’ll—he’ll talk to you when he’s ready, right? You shouldn’t push him, you’re too pushy, too demanding, too  _ needy _ —“Finish your food and then we can rest, okay? I started a book yesterday morning—want me to read it to you?”

“That’d be a miracle and a half, best friend,” he says, beginning to shovel food into his mouth again—albeit more slowly, this time. “Oh, fuck, but hey—I never did get around to askin’ how your night was. What all did they want with you at the medics’ office?”

“They just wanted some blood,” you say, staring forlornly at your book where it rests on your dresser. Why the fuck hadn’t you captchalogued it? Now you’re gonna have to get up to grab it. You’re so busy moping over that tragedy that you don’t notice Gamzee’s alarm until he leans forward, looking urgently at you.

“The fuck do you mean, motherfucker? They wanted your  _ blood?”  _ he asks, clicking anxiously in his throat. “Did they—did they hurt you, I mean—”

“No, no, it’s fine, seriously.” You reach out, brushing your palm softly against his cheek. “They didn’t take too much. It was only a little jab—here, see?” You roll up your sleeve, showing him the little dot in the crook of your elbow. There’s a cloudy red bruise around it, but it doesn’t hurt much unless you bend it too far. “I feel fine, so don’t get your fucking knickers in a twist.”

“My knickers are  _ so  _ motherfucking twisted, bro,” he tells you mournfully, cradling your forearm and examining the little wound critically. “I can’t believe they up and hurt you like that. The hell did they want with your blood?”

You shrug, your fingers twitching some as Gamzee dips his head and begins to lap gently at your wound, cleaning the last of your crusted blood away. “They’re gonna sell it, I guess. Apparently it dries brighter than human blood, and every subjugglator and their lusus is willing to pay a shitton for a new palette.” You snort. “Freaky fucking clowns.”

Gamzee grumbles low in his throat, something you can’t understand. 

“What? Speak up, bulgemunch. My ears are up here.” 

“Said it’s  _ my  _ palette,” he says, a grouchy little frown on his face. “I mean, it’s not, but like—if it  _ was  _ gonna be anybody’s palette, it would be mine before it was motherfucking theirs.  _ You’re  _ mine.”

You bark out a laugh, patting his cheek a little roughly before extricating yourself from the pile and heading for your book. “Yeah, I’m yours, dumbass. And so’s my stupid blood, if you want it.” You would. You’d give it to him, if he asked, though the thought makes you a little sick. But if it would make him feel better—you glance at him.  _ “Do  _ you want it?”

“Huh?” He startles, blinking up at you before his eyes flick guilty away from yours. “What, no—no way, motherfucker. I ain’t gonna open you up just for  _ paint.  _ That’d be some kinda motherfuckin’ foolish.”

You gotta admit, you’re a little relieved about that. “Right. Okay. Well, if you  _ do  _ want any—as long as I’m selling, you might as well buy, right? I’ll just make more.” You shrug again, like it’s not a big deal (it is) and scoop your novel up before returning to Gamzee’s side. 

Gamzee snuggles closer to you, resting his head in your lap as you crack the book open. “Hey, Karkat?” he says, his voice soft.

“Hm?” You flip carefully through the pages to find the place and perils in which you’d left your great heroine. 

“We still gotta jam about what happened yesterday morning, brother.”

“Oh.” You drop your ears slightly, guilt flaring up in your stomach. You’d snapped at him, you’d  _ snapped  _ at him—sure, fuck, you snap at him all the time but not like  _ that,  _ not with black, seething fear roiling behind your teeth. And for what? He hadn’t done anything  _ wrong.  _ “Yeah. I’m—fuck, I’m still really sorry, man.”

“Hey, nah, don’t be.” He reaches up, cradling your face in one big hand. He looks tired. There’s a weary, unhappy look in his eyes you don’t think you’ve ever seen before, and you wonder about Sollux told you. You wonder about the things your best friend doesn’t tell you. You wonder about what makes a moirallegiance. “It’s okay. Let’s just talk it out, little brother.”

You lean into his touch, resting your own hand over his. “Can we wait?” you ask. You can’t burden him with your shit, not when he looks so damn worn-down. His ears flicker back for a moment, a little frown on his face, and you add, “You’re tired. You told me so, remember? Give it a few nights. Rest a while.”

“And let that shit eat you up inside the whole time?” he asks, curling up a little tighter and wrapping his arms around your waist. “Doesn’t sit right, motherfucker.”

“It’d make me feel worse if I shoved all of my emotional garbage onto my half-dead moirail,” you say, tweaking his ear. Something flickers across his face, then. Something unreadable to you. You—don’t like that. Rarely is your moirail unreadable, but for the briefest of moments, looking at him is like looking through frosted glass, opaque and vague. “We will talk about it, I promise. Let’s just give it some time first. If I start feeling too guilty I’ll tell you.”

“Promise?” Gamzee demands, looking sternly at you—or as sternly as he can ever look at anyone, with his soft eyes and big ears and smiling paint. 

“Yeah, shitstain. I promise. Now—” You flip your book back up, resting it against his horns and clearing your throat. “Shut up and listen to this. ‘Her heart was a secret garden, and the walls were very high…’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s. the book karkat's reading from is "the princess bride" by william goldman! (hence the chapter track u.u)


	18. that master mason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: moooore shots, a dab of physical abuse (via nuodel), mentions of drowning/violence, mentions of withdrawals/hallucinations
> 
> chapter track: “northern downpour” by panic! at the disco

“Alrighty, just two more and then we’re good to go,” the medic says cheerfully, prepping the next of her hellish syringes. You would whine a little, only Nuodel is standing by the door and something in you feels a little sick when you think about pleading weakness around her. So you keep your trap shut (miracle of miracles) and only wince a little bit when the medic jabs the needle into your arm. You don’t dare growl at her, either. You’d done that once, on the first shot, and Nuodel had cuffed you hard enough over the horns that your ears rang for a solid two minutes. 

Of course, you wouldn’t have dared growl if _Karkat_ had been allowed to come with you, either. You’re still kinda pissed that he wasn’t, but Nuodel said he’d be getting his shots later today, and that you “didn’t need to be hanging off of his shirtsleeve like some kind of ugly, overgrown fucking parasite.” She said you needed to learn to control your own motherfucking self instead of relying on him to do it all the time—and with all the sopor that’s in between your fuckin’ ears you ought not need him at all.

You showed her your fangs, for that motherfuckin’ comment. You will _always_ have need of your littlest and loveliest of brothers, and to hell with anyone who thinks otherwise. (She’d knocked you over the horns again for that, showed you _her_ teeth and threatened to put you in the pool twice this week. You had most motherfuckin’ graciously declined that little offer.)

“Aaand last one—can you duck your head for me? This one’s gotta go in the back of your neck.” The medic stands up on tippy-toes, her needle glinting shiny in her hand. You grind your teeth nervously but dip your head, showing her your nape, and she slides the needle under your skin quick as anything. There’s not hardly anything _in_ that syringe, so it’s over quick as shit and then she’s pulling back from you and you’re licking your aching teeth. “There we go. All done!”

“Much obliged, sister,” you murmur, rubbing the back of your neck.

“In a couple of weeks you should be able to leave the base—that’ll be fun, huh?” She grins at you, snapping off her gloves and tossing them into the trash. “Any big plans?”

“Uh—” You pause, thinking hard and swinging your feet off of the side of the table. “Shopping, I think. I know my palemate’s been wanting to get more shit for our block—er, bedroom.”

“Oooh—and are you getting him anything for Valentine’s Day?” she asks. “You’ll be just in time.”

“Valentine’s Day?” you ask, pricking your ears curiously in her direction. You ain’t never _heard_ of such a thing. Didn’t know you were supposed to get something for it, shit—

“Don’t fill his head with garbage. Messiahs knows there’s enough of it in there already,” Nuodel interrupts, pushing off of the doorframe. “That’s human shit, Makara. You don’t need to worry about it. Let’s go.”

Despite Nuodel’s orders, you _do_ find yourself worrying about Valentine’s Day. You worry about it all through your training, through treadmilling and weight-lifting and _thank Messiahs_ you don’t have to swim again, not until next session. The thought of the water still makes sour, stinging bile rise in your throat. By the time Nuodel dismisses you, you’re achy and bone-tired, but you think you’re gettin’ used to that—it’s been a a little over a week of it, now.

When you get back to your respiteblock, Karkat’s gone—probably off trainin’ with Equius or Nepeta, as he’s wont to do since he can’t train with you anymore. You do regret that something fierce. You enjoy training with him (or at least you enjoy that _he_ enjoys it, boring as it may be to you), but you’re always too goddamn exhausted from Nuodel’s training to go with him. He doesn’t ask anymore, either.

You do some quick ablutions to get rid off all the sticky, nasty sweat clinging to you, then pull on your lounging clothes. You’ve run out of clean clothes to wear (ain’t been your laundry day yet—that’ll be next week, Nuodel says), so you’re trying your best to preserve what you have. This pair of sweatpants and this t-shirt are your favorite (though you would prefer something more colorful, you will concede), so you’re real careful not to get any greasepaint on them as you redo your face. 

Once you’re clean, you move through your stretches a few more times to ease the stiff, sore ache that’s permanently embedded itself into your muscles. Then you flop back on your makeshift pile of clothes, whipping out your phone to learn just what this _Valentine’s Day_ is. As soon as you’ve started to search for it, though, there’s a knock at your door. You whine low in your throat—you don’t _wanna_ get up again—and sniff at the air. Bitter almonds, with a tinge of something lower and sweeter—similar to honey, you think. Lower than that is the dull smell of ozone (of lightning and storms and _power),_ and you beam, because that’s the smell of a motherfuckin’ _friend._

“Hey, motherfucker,” you greet your scrawniest, yellowest motherfucker when you open the door. “What the fuck is _up?”_

“Hey, GZ.” Sollux offers you a little crooked smile. “Not much. KK said I could come over tonight—but I guess he’s not back yet, huh?”

You shake your head but step aside, sweeping an arm into your block. “Nah, but come on in, bro. You can chill a piece with me, if you want. Little motherfucker should be back soon. I think he left about the same time I did this evening, and I don’t know what as would keep him gone more than a few fuckin’ hours.”

“Well, you know how it is,” Sollux says, snorting and slipping past you, glancing intently around your block. “Self-loathing is a time-consuming hobby, and KK _is_ a prodigy at it.”

“Mm. All kinds of unfortunate, that, but you ain’t hardly wrong.” You rather wish he _wasn’t_ such a prodigy, but—well, you’ll get there, one day. You’ll make sure of it. “Anyway—sit anywhere you want, motherfucker. We don’t have much in the way of furniture, but we got some bitchtits carpet.”

You flop back down on your pile, nuzzling into one of Karkat’s shirts and breathing in the spicy-warm scent of him. Sollux doesn’t take you up on your offer to sit, but that’s chill. A motherfucker’s gotta do what a motherfucker’s gotta do. He strolls around your block, instead, examining the clawmarks on your wall. You ain’t got around to putting your own marks up, yet. Time doesn’t feel quite right, and the urge hasn’t struck you.

“I guess KK’s made himself at home, huh?” Sollux asks, tracing his fingers along the splintered marks. 

“Mm-hm. Ain’t half bad a home here.” You know, except for the pool. You could do without the pool. “Hey—where’s your block at, motherfucker? If you don’t mind telling at a brother, I mean—”

“No, it’s okay. It’s on the first floor, behind the laundromat. You guys can come visit sometime, if you want.”

“That sounds like a mighty fine idea, bro. Who do you share with?”

Sollux quirks a grin down at you, drifting over to sit against Karkat’s ‘coon. “I don’t have to share. One of the quirks of being a master hacker—” He waggles his fingers like he’s typin’ code right in the air. “I get what I want. Mostly. And that includes a private room and several thousand dollars in software.”

“Shit, that’s a nice deal right there.”

“Hell yeah. I mean, it’s not _bad_ here, as long as you stay on everybody’s good sides.” He shrugs one shoulder up. 

Your phone chirps at you before you can respond, and you glance down to see John’s snapped you. You unlock your phone and then see your search engine pulled up and remember—“Oh, motherfucker!” Sollux jumps, so you lower your voice a bit. “Do you know what Valentine’s Day is?”

“Yeah—it’s a human holiday,” Sollux explains as you glance at John’s snapchat (a picture of him and a troll you don’t recognize, one with a vicious smile and bright red glasses and a looping teal sign on her shirt) and send him one back of you with the cute barkbeast filter. “It celebrates their romantic shit.”

“Ooooh—” Oh, your Karkat _likes_ romantic shit. “They all just have one big hodgepodge quadrant here, right? So it’s kinda like—celebrating all of them?”

“Mm-hm.” Sollux nods, scrolling lazily through his own phone. “Mostly just redrom, though. They’re not big fans of blackrom.” He snorts. “And no wonder. If they tried to do anything hateful to each other they’d just break into little pieces or bleed everywhere. They’re a bunch of weak-ass donuts.”

You grin at that fine comparison (and at the same time begin to nurture a strong craving for donuts) before asking, “So—how are they up and celebrating it? They go on dates or somethin’?”

“Sometimes, I guess. I’ve never really celebrated it before—it’s more of a human thing. But I know they also buy each other presents or bring each other things to eat or make gifts. You know. Shitty cliché romantic stuff.”

“Karkat _loves_ shitty cliché romantic stuff,” you inform him quite sagely, chewing your lip as you think. You _gotta_ get in on this, if only to impress your palemate with how cool and suave and romantic you are. “So do—”

The block door slams open suddenly, revealing one very tiny and goddamn adorable motherfucker. “Good _morning,_ bitches,” Karkat says in that big, rough voice of his as he marches inside, hands on his hips. “Sollux, are you harassing my palemate?”

“Fuck no. How dumb do you think I am?”

“Gamzee, are you harassing this asshole?”

“No way, bro. We’re all peaceful-like up in this here block.”

“Disappointing.” He flips you off, heading for the ablutions block. “Get to work on that. We’re mad at him, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” You frown a little, squinting and pointing a finger at Sollux, who looks all baffled at you. “We’re mad at you, motherfucker,” you tell at him, then drop your hand and beam  in the direction of the ablutions block. “Okay, bro. I done harassed him, now.”

“Good.” Karkat raises his little shouty voice to keep talking as he starts the trap. “Sollux, spill. It’s about goddamn time you tell me about this new quadrant of yours. I will accept your penance in juicy romantic details and nothing else.”

Sollux laughs—a crackly little bark of a thing—and leans his head back against the ‘coon. “You drive a hard bargain, but I suppose I can entertain you. Her name’s Aradia.” His voice does an odd little thing when he says her name, warming and softening like butter left out in the sunshine. The honey-sweet in his scent spikes a little. “She’s—god, she’s awesome.”

“Why?” Karkat demands, and you can hear him scrubbin’ himself off as the water pitter-patters away in the ablutions block. 

Sollux cocks his head towards the door. “Why what?”

 _“Why_ is she awesome, dimwit? How’d you meet her? What kind of things do you do together? Is she good to you? Can I meet her? What—”

“Woah, woah, woah, one thing at a time, hotshot. God, you’re a hard asshole to keep up with.” Sollux studies his gangly fingers and clears his throat, his face yellowing. “She’s—awesome for so many reasons, seriously. She’s not interested in many things, but when she _is_ interested she’s so totally passionate; it’s incredible. She really loves history and archaeology—and I know she’s not really that interested in technology or coding, but she always listens when I talk to her about it. I think she’s trying to understand.” 

“Well, that’s a good sign, at least.” The handle squeaks as Karkat turns the water off, and you hear the flap of a towel being unfolded. “Do you— _do_ anything together? For fun? I mean, do you have _any_ shared interests?”

“Um—” Sollux tucks his knees up to his chest, bumping them together. “Not particularly. But that’s not a _bad_ thing. It just means we have more to learn from each other. I mean—”

“Hey, hey, I know it’s not a bad thing. You’re preaching to the choir, here.” Karkat slips back out of the ablutions block fresh and clean, dressed in jeans and a black sweater. You chuff your greeting to him and he settles down beside you, crossing his legs in front of him and hooking a thumb at you. “God knows I’ve got nothing in common with this freak.”

Sollux grins, resting his chin on his knees. “Fair point. The two of you are pretty fuckin’ different. I mean, in size alone—look at you, KK. It’s like seeing a drowned cat next to a dizzy giraffe.”

“Oh, fuck off, globesucker.” He scowls and flings a shirt in Sollux’s direction all playful-like, and Sollux catches it in his claws and laughs. “Enough with the unoriginal short jokes. More details, chop chop—” He snaps his fingers together.

Sollux goes on to tell you all about his new moirail, what believes in fate inevitable and hears the voices of those dead and gone. Tells at you about her bright eyes and curling horns, her steady rationale and friendly disposition. Tells at you about her courage in the face of what a scourge human illness is. All the while, your Karkat listens with fervent eyes and pricked ears, enraptured as he ever is with a tale of romance.

You have _got to_ get in on this Valentine’s Day thing, if only to make him look at you that way. Not that he doesn’t already (he does, especially when you do something sappy like call him your beloved or bring him breakfast) but you can’t ever get _enough_ of that look. Can’t ever get enough of his love, can’t ever make him happy enough. It’s a hunger in you you can’t quite fill up. _He’s_ a hunger in you.

You don’t much mind at all.

* * *

You get your little brother trapped in your block that morning, for fucking _finally._ All your friends have come and gone, all your duties and your meals, you’ve taken your vitamins and slathered lotion across the almost-vanished fleabites on your skin, and now you find time to pile him the way he deserves. You—hope, anyway. You gotta admit, you’re nervous. Don’t wanna frighten him again, not like you did last time. Don’t want him showin’ you teeth and claws like you’re some enemy come down on him, and all because you—what? Tried to gentle him? You don’t know why that’s a thing as would scare him. It never has before—and you have done it _many_ a time. 

You haven’t done it since his lusus died, though, or since you left Alternia. You figure it has somethin’ to do with that. You’ll hear him out, no matter the reason. You will hear every-fucking-thing your littlest motherfucker has to say at you. You ain’t gonna try to woo him this time, though you _do_ love wooing. But he’s got you too prickly already, itching to have and hold. You done waited long enough—eight nights, longer than you ought have, you’re sure, though it’s hard to argue with your brother. He’s far cleverer than you, quick-witted and sharp where you’re softened and slowed by your sopor. Makes you wanna stop eating the fucking slime. Lots of stuff makes you want to stop eating the fucking slime.

Then, of course, you go and remember what happens if you do. You’d gone without for just a liiiittle too long a few times, as a younger wiggler, when you couldn’t find a single pack of sopor left in hive—until you looked behind the couch, oddly enough. (Remember the nausea and the shaking and the fear that set your heart beating hard enough you thought it might just fuckin’ _pop._ Remember the flashes of color behind your eyelids and the scream of voices in your head what you didn’t motherfucking recognize. Remember the _fury.)_ That sets you back on right back on track.

Now is not the time to be thinking about that shit, though. Tomorrow will be another pool day, and you know Karkat will see your second death in your eyes, even if you dare not tell him. (Though you hope, hope, _hope_ that if you are good enough Nuodel will go easy on you. You hope you can make her like you. You really, really hope.) But what if he _did_ flip his shit? What if he tried to take you away from here and Nuodel—Nuodel—

The point being, you will not tell him, but he will know your hurting nonetheless. And he, stubborn motherfucker that he is, will put your jam off again. You dare not wait for that. So you get him right before ‘coon—cuddle up to him as he reads his novel, butt your horns up in front of the pages until he has to look down to glare at you. “Hey, best friend,” you say, reaching up to pap his cute lil face. Not much point in beating around the bush. “You up for a jam?”

His face softens a little, and he kisses at your hand—nips a bit, too, him bein’ the prickly fucker he is. “You need one?”

You nod earnestly at him, trying your best to look bright and not-tired and focused. “Fuck yeah. Been wanting for _nights,_ motherfucker.” You squirm a little closer, nuzzling up against his tummy and give him your best barkbeast eyes. “You ain’t gonna turn a brother down again, are you? Been missin’ you something fierce.”

He snorts and ruffles your hair. “Yeah, yeah, you don’t have to give me that face, dumbass. I’m not gonna keep putting you off.” He sets his book aside. Looks a little bit nervous, but you suppose that’s to be expected. He won’t like brushin’ up so close with his guilt once he’s got his distance from it, but you can’t let him hide from it—though he’s clever, your brother, and sometimes you’re scared that if hides even you won’t be able to find him. “C’mon, up. Jam time it is.”

“Hell yeah!” you cheer, pumping a fist in the air and beginning to scoop your clothes back into a meager pile. You flop down on it, opening your arms for him. He wiggles himself down into them, hooking his chin over your shoulder and breathing out a happy little sigh (reminds you of his lusus, that sigh, and your chest twists sharply). You smooth a hand across his hair, tangling your legs together and humming a merry little beat in your throat. 

“So I assume this is about—” He clears his throat, fingers fiddling with your shirt. “The other morning? When I flipped my epic fucking shit at you for doing literally nothing wrong?”

“Well—” You squint up your eyes, trying to think as there’s anything wrong with that assumption. “Maybe not in those exact terms, bro, but—yeah, near enough.”

Best friend squirms a little against your chest, and you hear his teeth grinding anxiously. You get a hand up and pap his cheek. “I’m sorry—” he starts, eyes flickering away as he leans against your palm. 

“Yeah, I know, motherfucker. That’s enough of that noise, I think.” You smooth your thumb across his cheek, trying as best you can to pull all of his icky-bad-scary emotions out of his skin. “You’re sorry, and I’m sorry, and we’re both the sorriest motherfuckers there ever were. I got a want to know _why,_ though, best friend. What all did I do wrong?”

“No, no, _you_ didn’t do anything wrong,” Karkat insists, nuzzling up into the crook of your neck—so he won’t have to look at you, you think. That’s okay. You can tolerate a little bit of hiding, if it keeps him from getting so well-hid he’s gone from you. “You just did what I told you to, okay? I was—it was really good, Gamzee, honestly. And I _asked_ you touch my stupid fucking horns, so you have nothing to blame yourself for.”

“And you said you didn’t know you were gonna flip your shit either, bro,” you remind him. “Us motherfuckers both in the dark and all, can’t neither one of us be to blame, not really. What happened after, best friend? That’s what I want to get my know on about.”

Karkat snuffles against your neck, scenting you for his comfort, you think, and you nuzzle up against him. “I got—scared,” he says, the words stiff and unyielding. Unwilling to click with his emotions the way they need to. “You—I—fuck, I don’t know. I just started feeling so fucking _helpless,_ which is normally, I mean, with you it’s fine, but I—”

“What scared you so, brother?” you coax, gentle as you can—tugging him along, guiding him towards where you need to be.

“I—” You hear his mouth open, then shut. It’s an odd thing for your best friend to run out of words. Makes your guts twist uncomfortably, and you twine yourself all the tighter around him, like maybe you can squeeze him back to bein’ himself, loud and passionate and fierce. “It’s just—this _place._ It doesn’t feel safe. It doesn’t feel like home.”

“Mm. I hear you there, brother,” you agree, and you goddamn do—this place scares you far worse than Alternia ever did. “What about it doesn’t feel motherfuckin’ safe? If it’s someone as is threatening you, I’ll—”

“No, no, nothing like that.” He burrows closer to you, hooks a leg between yours just to rest it there. “The others aren’t threatening—not more than they would’ve been on Alternia, anyway. Nuodel and Noir are weird, but not completely awful, I think.”

You’d beg to disagree, but you (for once) keep your trap shut.

“I don’t know what it is,” he continues, voice going quiet, like he’s half talking to himself. “Maybe it’s just still too unfamiliar. I think—I think maybe once I get used to it, we can try again. The—submission thing, I mean.” You can practically feel him blushin’, his face heating up against the cool skin of your neck. 

“I’d like that a motherfuckin’ lot,” you tell him, earnest as you can—barely resist the urge to skirt a finger ‘round his cute little horns, but you don’t wanna scare him any. If your brother wants to wait, then wait you motherfucking _shall._ “You know how I love it, brother. Love having you soft and sweet and relaxed for me—’s so fucking _cute,_ holy shit—”

He makes a hissy little sound and butts his horns up under your chin, and you giggle and pap his butt. That gets you another grouchy sound (though this one’s a little squawkier) and Karkat nips at your chin, growlin’ playfully. Gives you an excuse to shoosh him, press your lips against his hair and breath out, slow and warm, until you feel him relax against you. “Asshole,” he mumbles, but his voice is fond. Makes your heart feel so fuckin’ full with love of him, he does. 

“One last thing, bro, and then we can get our righteous cuddle on,” you tell him, smoothing a hand steadily up and down his back. Keep him calm, keep him centered, ‘cause you got a feeling he ain’t gonna like what you ask next. “We never did get our talk on about your lusus. Feel like we should—”

“No,” Karkat bites out. His back goes rigid beneath you—makes you wince for his tense little muscles, and you pet them apologetically. “There’s nothing to talk about. He died. I disemboweled his murderer. The end.”

“But it had to hurt you, little brother. It had to scare you. I want to—”

“Yeah, and I want to forget it about it, but we don’t always get what we want, do we?” he snaps, squirming to get away from you, and you—you do not have the will to make him stay. You release him, and he stomps away from you, folding his arms across his chest and grinding his teeth. “He’s _dead._ I _know_ he’s dead. We don’t have to rehash it every fucking perigee. I don’t _like thinking about it._ I didn’t know it was a _crime_ not to dwell on your lusus’ horrific and untimely slaughter. _”_

“It’s no such crime, best friend,” you assure him, holding your hands up all peaceful-like. You hate seein’ him get so riled, especially after you just had him settled and fond and content. “You got a right to do what feels best to you. But I’ve just been thinkin’ that maybe it isn’t—so healthy to push all your feelin’ away like—”

He rattles off a growl at you and you shut your mouth. First smart thing you’ve done all morning, probably. “What the fuck do _you_ know about healthy, huh?” 

Ah. There he is, again. That master mason that poses as your moirail from time to time, building up walls brick-by-brick behind his eyes. One day he’s going to trap you outside of himself, if you keep pushin’. You can abide many things, but that would be the end of you for certain. You dare not push. You dare not drive him to build those walls any higher.

“Nothin’, best friend,” you murmur. Drop your eyes, droop your ears, turn your eyes from him. Let him know you won’t be on offensive anymore. Let him know you’ve up and yielded to his wants. “Don’t know nothin’ at all. Forget about it. I shouldn’t have pushed so much.”

You hear him take a deep breath, settling himself down, and then he comes to crouch beside you again. Reaches out and smooths a hand over your hair, and you lean into him. His walls will keep you both safe, if only he’ll leave a door open for you. “Hey, no. I’m—sorry. That was a shitty thing for me to say.” He bumps his forehead against yours. “Neither one of us knows a lot about healthy, but you’re not any worse than me. We’ll get there, okay? Together.”

“Together,” you agree, relief sinking itself down into your bones. You hold your fingers out to him in a V, and he places his own fingertips against yours to complete your diamond. “Always, little brother. Sorry I brought your lusus up again.”

“It’s okay.” He climbs into your lap, hot little sun bundled into a troll’s body, and you hug him tight. “Sorry I snapped at you for it. I just—it—hurts. I don’t want it to hurt if it doesn’t have to. You know?”

“Yeah. I know.” You press your lips to his hair, close your eyes. “Won’t bring it up again, best friend. If you ever _do_ wanna talk about him, though, I’ve always got an ear for you.”

“What? Only one?” Karkat asks, a hesitant, teasing little tone in his voice. You let yourself laugh, let yourself forget your troubles for a moment—it ain’t often your brother jokes, and you’ll enjoy it while you can.

“Alright, alright,” you say, like concedin’ to him is difficult (it ain’t), grinning and nuzzling your nose against his. “I guess you can have both of ‘em, motherfucker, you bein’ my most cherished darling and all.”

Best friend snorts, reaching up to scratch behind your ear. “Darling?” he repeats—cute little English word you’d learned from that novel he’s been readin’ to you on occasion. You think it fits him well. “You ridiculous sap. God. You’d have to cut down an entire continental forest to obtain this much goddamn sap—you are the cause of worldwide deforestation, it’s you.”

“It is me,” you agree wholeheartedly, laying back on the pile and curling up around him again. “I’m gonna deforest _all_ the motherfuckin’ worlds, little brother, to lay on you all this sweet fuckin’ sap.”

Karkat laughs—short little bark of a thing, but it wells you up with mirth anyway. You cuddle him about to motherfuckin’ death, and the two of you talk late into the morning about all the little nothings in your lives: the types of human food you like best, the things you’re gonna buy once you can leave this base, how your friends are doin’. Ain’t very many secrets between the two of you. In fact, right now you think you’ve only got two. One of them you’ll keep until you’re sure it won’t him killed to tell, and the other—

Well, the other he’s gonna find out about on _Valentine’s Day._


	19. the ground is shifting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: vague references to drowning/violence/child neglect, discussions of blood, casteism, brief mentions of symptoms of acute stress disorder (namely irritable mood, outbursts, anxiety, and avoidance of reminders)
> 
> chapter track: "black dog/you are my sunshine" by andrew jackson jihad

“Valentine’s Day? The fuck is that?” you ask, scowling at Sollux and leaning in his doorframe. He’s sitting in the middle of his block floor, surrounded by red and pink construction paper, glitter, glue, scissors, stickers, and just about every other crafting item on the fucking planet. He’s cutting a meticulously-shaped diamond out of pink paper, forked tongue poking between his too-big fangs as he concentrates.

“‘s a human holiday,” he says as he finishes his final cut and _finally_ decides you’re worth the energy to look at. “You can come in, you know. The block doesn’t bite.”

You scowl _harder_ at him, just so he knows you’re still mad, and then slip into his block and take a seat across from him. He’s got an actual _couch_ in here. Fuck him. You sprawl out across it, kicking your shoes up on the armrest just to piss him off. Unfortunately, he’s too busy sprinkling glitter on his diamond to notice _or_ feel sufficiently pissed. “Okay, great. What’s it _about,_ bulgebrain? Is it some stupid wiggler’s crafting competition? Because that’s the impression I’m getting right now.”

Sollux snorts, then looks horrified as a puff of white glitter sweeps up off of his diamond because of his breath. “No. It’s about romance and shit.” He fusses over the diamond, re-glittering the bare spots with frantic energy. “I usually don’t celebrate it, but I thought since you guys are going to, I might as well try it out this year. Maybe it’ll cheer Aradia up.” 

He sighs wistfully. It’s absolutely sickening how in love you are with his love for her. There’s one thing that catches your attention more than even that does, though. “Wait, hold up—who the fuck said _I’m_ celebrating this glittery shitfest?”

Sollux spares you another glance, though he looks rather baffled. “Uh, you’re _not?”_

“Fuck no. I mean—I wasn’t _planning_ on it.” You squint at him, sitting up and leaning forward. “Why? What makes you think I am?”

“Eeeer—nothing.” He turns back to his project, beginning to cut out several smaller, rust-colored diamonds. “It just seems like your kind of holiday, I guess. You’re all about romance and shit, aren’t you, Mr. Suave?”

“Hell yeah,” you say, puffing up a little. You _are_ the master romancer. Hey—maybe he’s onto something, actually. “So this holiday—it’s for moirails, too?”

“It’s for whatever the fuck we want it to be for.” He glues the dark red diamonds along the edges of the pink diamond, then begins cutting out little yellow diamonds to go with it. “Fuck humans and their weird not-quadrants.”

_That’s_ the spirit, you think. You lower yourself to the floor, sitting in the midst of Sollux’s frantic crafting disaster. The air smells sharper around him, thick and sickeningly sweet. You reach for a sheet of heavy white paper. “I’m gonna join your shitty crafting party now,” you inform him, and he grunts in acknowledgement, focused on putting a _single_ dot of white glitter in the center of each little diamond. 

The two of you work in silence for a time, and then you get sick and tired of the quiet and pull up some great Alternian rock on your phone. You hum along to the songs as you snip out diamonds and sprinkle glitter and scribble with Sollux’s shitty markers and get glue all over your fingers and claws, _ugh._

“So when _is_ this, anyway?” you ask when you pause, examining your card critically. Needs more glitter. Gamzee likes shiny shit. “And is this all we do? Give each other shitty arts and crafts with sickeningly poetic and cheesy declarations of affection?”

“No. ‘s just part of it.” Sollux is making the _front_ of his card, now, working with intensity and glitter in equal (-ly massive) parts. “The rest is chocolate and dates and flowers and shit. Avoid the chocolate, though—at least milk chocolate. You’re lactose intolerant.”

“I’m what?”

“Trust me. Unless your lusus was a mammal, trolls and milk are _not_ friends, so don’t let humans tempt you into trying it. Dark chocolate would probably be fine, though.”

You subtly note that down in your phone as Troll Metallica wails about puppets and strings in your ear. “So _when_ is it? Tomorrow? In a week? What?”

“In a couple of days. Thursday, I think.”

“Okay. What else? Dates, you said? Like— _date-_ dates?”

“Yeah, like dinner-and-a-show shit, followed by gratuitous piling. That.”

“Got it.” You jot that down, bobbing your head along as the song’s chorus is punctuated by several artistically-placed snarls, growls, and clicks. “Flowers?”

“Okay, I shouldn’t need to explain that one to you. Use Google for your basic information needs, not your friends.” He sprawls out on his stomach and begins scribbling something down on the inside of his card with a gold marker, kicking his legs over his back. You grumble at him but you _do_ use Google, thank you very much, to research what you can about Valentine’s Day. You have _plans_ to make. 

It’s almost midnight by the time you finish your card, and you stretch yourself out with a groan and about nine million protesting cracks from your spine. “Right, okay. Fuck this. I’m done.” You hold your card up for his appraisal—you’re have to admit, you’re a _little_ proud of it, even though it looks like something an over-enthusiastic grub would put together. “Is this Valentine-y enough?”

Sollux glances up, then flashes you a thumbs-up with his free hand. “It looks great, asshole. What do you think about this? I think it needs something else, but I’m not sure what.”

He holds up his own card, which even _you_ have to admit is over the top. He’s glued two large pink paper diamonds together at one of the points on the long side to make an openable card. The outside of the front diamond is coated in a fine layer of white glitter with smaller rust and yellow diamonds glued around the edges, each with its own little crystal of glitter in the center. On the inside of the first diamond, there are several pictures of Sollux with another troll—one with thick hair and bright eyes and curling horns.

“Oh,” you say, melting a little bit inside because _okay,_ that’s fucking cute as shit. “Is that her?”

“Yeah.” Sollux smiles, tracing a claw around the edge of a glossy photo. “Does it look good? I mean—were the borders too much?”

The borders (frills of paper coated with copious yellow and red glitter set around each picture) were probably too much, but you’re not gonna tell _him_ that. If there’s one thing you _don’t_ like rage-shitting all over, it’s functional relationships that actually seem to make your friends happy. “No,” you say, instead. “I think she’ll like it. What’s that say?”

You point to the yellow writing on the inside of the back diamond, squinting to try and read the tiny letters. Good _god,_ there’s an entire novel there. 

“Oh—that’s my cheesy declaration of affection.” He closes the card carefully, before you can read what he’s written, showing you the back instead. It’s no less glittery than the front, although the tiny diamonds have been replaced with stickers of white roses, stars, and a fat pink cat with a heart above it. The heart has been hastily scribbled out and replaced with a darker red diamond. “So? What do you think?”

“It’s abhorrently gaudy and brighter than an entire solar system,” you say, and Sollux’s face falls some, ears drooping. _“But,_ it’s not bad. I think she’ll like it. It’s pretty obvious you put a shit-ton of time into making it, and that’s what matters, right?”

Sollux brightens again, chirping happily. “Right! I mean—if the romance _master_ says that, it’s gotta be true.” He sticks his tongue out at you as he scrambles to begin cleaning up, and you roll your eyes and begin putting away your own shit. You captchalogue your card, moving it gingerly—the glue’s not quite dry yet, you think. “Oh—hey, you want what you actually came here for?”

You glance over as Sollux dumps a pile full of clothes out of his hamper, shoving the little plastic basket in your direction. “Thanks, jackass,” you say, captchaloguing the hamper. The gang had supplied you with enough clothes to fill a hamper, but not an actual hamper—which puts a bit of a damper on things when you need to get ready for laundry day. “You sure you don’t want to come shopping with us later this week?”

“No, sorry.” He shakes his head, standing up and stretching his whole lanky-noodle self out. “I’m going over to the hospital that evening. Maybe next time, though, okay?”

“If you want. I’m sure Gamzee would be overjoyed to have another asshole around.” You flap a hand dismissively at him, moving back towards the hallway. “I’ll see you later, you bastard.”

“See you, bitch.” You hear him snap his teeth playfully at your back, and you flip him off without turning around. You make it back to your room without bumping into any other assholes (now _that’s_ a miracle) and step inside, leaning back against your door and letting out a breath. Damn, but when Sollux is high-energy he takes a lot of focus to keep up with. 

You set the hamper down near your closets and begin reluctantly pulling your pile apart, dumping your dirty clothes into the basket. Your scheduled laundry day isn’t until later in the week, but you’re tired of having all this _mess_ laying around. It’s not a proper pile, not by any right, and you can’t fucking wait to have some _actual_ piling shit. God knows you need it. Gamzee is—worrying you. He was practically shivering when he left for his training with Nuodel tonight, and for the life of you, you can’t figure out what fucking _scares_ him so much.

And, well. He’s not going to _tell_ you, is he?

Except he does. Tell you, you mean. He tells you he fears the water, on his pool training days, because it reminds him of the old goat, of seadwellers and long lonely nights. You don’t doubt that that’s the truth, but you _do_ doubt that that’s all of it. When _hasn’t_ the water reminded him of those things? And yet, as long as you’ve known him, he’s always adored swimming. Halfway to being a seadweller, him. He’s got secondary eyelids and everything—hell, you bet he’ll probably have mutant gills or fins or both, after he’s pupated. 

But now your precious almost-seadweller recoils from the sound of even the ablutions trap starting. His breath hisses between his fangs if the water temperature nears even lukewarm. He comes back to your block soaking wet and trembling, his eyes distant and so terribly, terribly tired. He’ll pace a hole in your floor the morning before pool nights, worrying and worrying and _worrying,_ and he wants you to believe it’s all because of that goat?

You didn’t think your palemate considered you so _stupid._

But he must, because he sticks stubbornly to his story, no matter how much you drill him about it. He just smiles and pets your hair and eats too much sopor and offers you pieces of the truth. Won’t even mention his training, when you’re piling him. Just locks his jaw and shakes his head and huddles close to you. You hate it. You hate it _so fucking much._

You’ve worked yourself up into an irritated little growling fit thinking on it when your doorknob suddenly turns and you choke off, startled out of your brooding. You whip around, sniffing the air suspiciously—you smell cold water and sour fear. Right on time, then. Gamzee stumbles inside, shoulders slumped and facepaint smeared to hell and back. 

“Hey,” you say softly, and he flicks an ear in your direction.

“Hey.” His voice is quiet and ragged. He locks the door behind him and opens his arms for you, swaying on his feet. You cross over to him and wrap your arms around his waist, squeezing tightly. His heart hammers beneath your ear. His lungs rattle. He leans his weight against you and lets out a heavy sigh, burying his face between your horns. “Pale for you, best friend.”

“I know.” And you do. You _do_ know. Sollux was right about that, too. He loves you—secrets or not, he loves you. You only wonder how much he trusts you. “I’m pale for you too, dumbass. So fucking pale.” 

“Mm.” He nuzzles against your hair. “Wanna nap with a brother?”

And who are you to tell him no, when he sounds so tired and defeated? You take his hand and lead him to ‘coon, and the two of you curl around each other until you don’t know where he ends and you begin. You wish you could stay like that forever. You wish you could know him, inside and out. You wish there weren’t secrets between you—secrets like a second layer of skin, prying the two of you apart.

When you both wake up, shortly before dinnertime, you pry yourselves out of ‘coon and run through your ablutions. Gamzee paints his face in slow, weary lines, and you rub the ever-present stiffness out of his shoulders and back and legs as best you can. He winces beneath you, soft and sore, and makes the saddest, tiniest sounds you’ve ever heard. They make you want to kill someone—Nuodel, probably.

“Hey, Gam,” you say quietly, resting your forehead against the back of his head as you trail your claws up and down his back. He hums softly in response and swivels an ear in your direction. “If this training hurts you so much, we can—we can stop. You know that, right?”

“Can’t stop, bro,” he says, shoulders slumping slightly. “Can’t stay here unless I’m training to be a subjugglator. Those’re the rules.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But we don’t— _have_ to stay here. We can leave. They said we could leave whenever we wanted. There have to be other places—”

Gamzee goes rigid beneath you, ears flattening. “No,” he says, his voice louder and colder than you’re used to hearing it. It doesn’t sound like him. Sounds like a fucking stranger. (Sounds like Nuodel.) “No, we’re not leaving, motherfucker. Don’t you even think on it—”

“Hey, hey, _shh.”_ You reach around to brush your fingers across his cheek—feel his mouth curled back, baring his teeth at the air in front of him. “I’m not saying we _have_ to. I’m just saying it’s an _option—”_

“No.” He leans into your hand—doesn’t snap at you, but he does brush his fangs across your palm; a warning. You pull your hand back. “No, it ain’t, either. We’re not leaving, brother. This place keeps us safe and well-fed; a little bit of motherfucking soreness is worth all that. Don’t you even make mention of leaving again, not for my sake.”

You shift away from him, your chest cold. “Yeah,” you say, eyes flickering across his back—the curve of his shoulders, the ripple of new muscle building under his skin, the glint of his fangs as he turns to look at you. He’s changing. He’s changing in front of you, and there’s no way you can keep up. The ground is shifting beneath your feet. “Okay.”

Then his eyes catch yours, and he softens, and he belongs to you again. “Hey—hey, I’m sorry, little brother. Fuck. I didn’t mean to snap at you—” He turns and reaches out for you, and you release a soft breath and let him draw you against his chest. He winds his arms around you and rocks you slowly, kissing your hair. Fresh starts are fucking terrifying. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry—but I don’t want to leave, brother, please—”

“We won’t leave,” you murmur, leaning back against him. “If you don’t want to leave, we’ll stay here. I’m okay with staying here as long as you are.”

“Promise?” 

You hesitate, chewing your bottom lip. You don’t want to. You don’t want to make that promise to him, not if you can’t keep it—

_“Promise,_ motherfucker.”

“Promise,” you say, closing your eyes and hating yourself for it. “I promise, Gamzee.”

And keep that promise you will, until the day comes when those words are a blade at your throat—or at his. Then that promise will you break, and you’ll do so without hesitation. 

* * *

“—no, fold it, _fold it,_ oh my god you’re so fucking pitiful this is ridiculous—” Your hands cover Gamzee’s, guiding him to fold a pair of his boxers the _right_ way. “In half, then in half again. Come _on._ This is basic schoolfeeding shit. You can’t even blame your lusus—or lack _thereof—_ for this.”

“Half, half again,” he mumbles to himself, squinting in concentration. “Got it, bro. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

“It’s not uncommon for a highblood to be unaware of rudimentary household tasks,” Equius points out. He’s sitting across from you in the laundromat, folding his own pile of clothes while Nepeta curls up in the shirts fresh from the dryer and kneads happily at them with her dumb little claws. “Such mundane things are below castes as powerful as his. He—”

“Yeah, yeah, go nurse your gross casiest boner somewhere else,” you grouch, flinging a sock in his direction. “I don’t wanna hear it, and neither does _the highblood.”_

“Yeah, bro,” Gamzee agrees, fumbling to fold his next set of boxers. “Can we be talking about somethin’ else? Like, uuuuh—shopping?”

“Oh yeah.” Your ears prick up a little bit, attention sharpening. “We were wondering if you guys would mind showing us around the city this Thursday. We need to get some things, but we have no _fucking_ idea where anything is on this shithole of a planet, and Sollux is busy that night.”

“Really?” Nepeta’s eyes widen, her ears flicking forward—she’s got the pointiest goddamn ears you’ve ever seen, seriously. This is the first time you’ve seen her without her hat, which is buried somewhere in the clothing she’s lounging on, you think. “That would be _pawesome._ Equius, we should help them meowt. We can do our shopping that night too, can’t we?”

Equius frowns, carefully folding a pair of his moirail’s dainty little leggings. “I suppose it would be honorable to acquiesce, if only because the highblood requested it.”

“Um, excuse you, _I_ requested it,” you point out, flattening your ears. Then you prick them up again, a sarcastically-pleased chitter rattling in your throat. “Although if you’re going to go around calling anybody a highblood, it should definitely be me. I am _royalty reborn,_ fucker. I am _clearly_ the perfect combination of assholery and general stupidity that makes up nobility.”

“I’ll have you know that’s incredibly disparaging to the elite class, but—” Equius adjusts his sunglasses cautiously, his big square fingers dwarfing the lenses. “What _is_ your caste, Vantas? It’s improper to leave it unacknowledged for so long.”

“Guess,” you sneer, folding up a pair of your sweatpants and setting them back into hamper Sollux had loaned you. “Go on. If you’re so knowledgeable about all of these caste stereotypes, it should be easy for you to stick a label on me, shouldn’t it?”

A muscle twitches in Equius’ jaw, and he reaches into the pile next to him and pulls Nepeta’s hat out, then drops it onto her head. She chitters happily and pulls it down over her horns, eyes bright and table swishing. “Burgundy,” Equius says, after a brief moment in which the four of you fold your laundry (well—three of you fold, and one of you wallows around in the clothes and bats at a sock) in relative silence. “The color when you bruise. It’s burgundy.”

“That’s not what I asked,” you say. Gamzee leans against you. Messes up folding again, so you groan and tear your eyes away from Equius to correct him. “Based off of your petty little stereotypes, what color would I be?”

“...gold,” Equius decides, after another quiet moment. “You would be gold. You act above your caste—”

“I act like _me,_ asshole. Your stereotypes are just wrong.” You snort, beginning to tuck socks together. Gamzee copies you, his eyes focused on the brisk movements of your hands. You slow some so he can follow you more easily. “God, your skull is thicker than any other part of you—and that’s saying something, meathead.”

Nepeta draws her legs up underneath her, then pounces suddenly, sending your carefully-cultivated pile of socks scattering. “I think we should all try to be nice to each other, purr-ty please?” she says, watching you with the biggest pupils you’ve ever seen. Her tail’s twitching—jerky, wide movements you don’t see very often, just a step away from lashing. You scowl at her. “Equius can be stubborn, but he isn’t stupid, Karkitty. And Equius—”

“Yes, Nepeta?” Equius asks, glancing up at her. You think he might actually sound a little bit _shy_ , holy fuck. She’s got him whipped.

“Stop picking on Karkitty just because he’s a lowblood. You know that’s mean.” She pouts at him, curling up in the debris of your sock pile. 

“You know what else is mean?” you ask, glowering at her. 

She swishes her tail, smiling innocently up at you. “Nope, sorry. What is it?”

“It’s shedding all over my _nice, clean_ sock pile, you furry fucking heathen—” 

You pounce at her and she squeals in delight, rolling away from you. You land in the sock pile and growl after her, clicking your teeth, and she rocks up onto her haunches and boxes you over the ears with her little hands. It stings, but her claws don’t even nick your skin. In retribution, you lunge forward and butt your horns into her stomach, knocking her back between two large washing machines. The two of you scuffle there, Nepeta giggling happily and you growling up a storm, until you hear Equius sigh behind you.

“Honestly, you two. This playfighting is unbecoming, even for trolls of your caliber. Desist at once,” he chides. 

“Aw, Equius, you’re no _fun,”_ Nepeta says, pouting as she rakes her claws down your ribs. If she’d actually been fighting you, you’re sure she would have just flayed you to the bone—it sends a little shiver of fear down your spine, and you surge down and bite at her forearms as she yanks them up to defend her face. You’re careful not to break her skin, either. Equius is a jerk, but you definitely don’t want to be on his bad side. Have you _seen_ the size of that behemoth?

“Of course I’m not fun,” Equius says. _“One_ of us has to be the responsible one in this relationship. Come now, both of you. What are the adults going to think if they see you tussling like this? Nepeta, come here at once. Highblood, please, control your moirail.”

“Me?” Gamzee laughs, and you sneak a look behind you just so you can see him grinning. You don’t get to see nearly enough of that smile anymore. Nepeta seizes the opportunity and nips your throat hard enough to bruise, the little fucking pissant. “Come on, man. Ain’t nobody controls my Karkat, let alone me.”

Equius makes an irritated little sound, and you hear him shift slightly. “Nepeta. Come here. _Please.”_

He’s—actually starting to sound a little bit upset, you think. Why the fuck? It’s not like you’re actually going to _hurt_ Nepeta. She’s an annoying little shit, but you—think you might actually not hate her. He’s probably just mad because you’re getting your grubby little lowblood hands all over her. Still. You suppose you should relent, before you piss off the miniature sweaty ruffannihilator. Nepeta seems to be thinking the same thing, because she relaxes underneath you, glancing in Equius’ direction.

“Alright, alright.” You hear Gamzee stand up behind you, hear his ambling footfalls move in your direction until he stops behind you. His arms loop around your middle and he scoops you up, cradling you close to his chest and nuzzling against your face. “There now, bro, let’s settle down. I know you’re only playin’, but I think it’s time we get our chill on and finish up this laundry afore the sun rises.”

You hiss absently at him for picking you up (though you cuddle up to his bony chest anyway) and shoot Nepeta one last glare as she scurries in her moirail’s direction. Gamzee sits down with you and begins lazily reassembling your sock pile as you knead his leg gently with your claws, settling yourself down. Nepeta does the same, snuggling up in her moirail’s lap as he resumes folding their clothing. 

Equius keeps one big hand petting softly over Nepeta’s head as he finishes their laundry. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him be gentler with anything. He touches her like she’s made of spun glass, and she leans against him and hums happily. The air smells like dryer sheets, soft and clean. The low hum of washing machines and dryers fills the air, and your own moirail’s stomach rises and falls slowly with each calm breath he takes. For a moment, you are perfectly content.

But the moment passes, as they always do.

Once your laundry is finished, you stack it all into the hamper and head back upstairs. You leave Nepeta and Equius on the second floor as you continue up to your own room on the third, Gamzee trailing behind you and humming softly under his breath—a tune he caught from Nepeta, you think. In your block, you hang up your shirts and pants and tuck your boxers and socks into your dresser, then stand back and place your hands on your hips.

“There,” you announce, satisfied. At last, your block feels clean again. “Perfect.”

“Yeah,” Gamzee agrees, leaning down to kiss the top of your head. His voice sounds ridiculously dreamy. “You are.”

“Oh, shut up, you horn-fondling shitfest.” You turn around and lean up on your tiptoes (fuck him for being so tall, seriously) so you can kiss him, and he hums happily and kisses you back. He tastes like sopor, cool and bitter. You cradle his face with one hand, brushing your thumb along his cheek—you think you could kiss him for sweeps and never get tired of it. You are one lovesick goddamn fool. “Hey,” you say, pulling back some and rubbing your nose against his. “I have a request.”

“Anything, brother,” he says, looking earnestly at you. His eyes are the sea—deep and gray, glittering like broken glass in the dim green light of your block. “Lay it on me.”

“I want you to tell me what you want.”

He cocks his head some, confusion trickling into those bright eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—if you could have anything in the world from me, what would you want?” You duck down, burrowing into his throat, tracing his pulse with the tip of your nose. Your face feels warm. “Like—piling-wise, or gift-wise, or—or anything-wise, really.”

“Shit, bro. I’ve already got everything I want, when it comes to you.” He hugs you close, rubbing his hand across the back of your head like he’s trying to ruffle the shaggy hair you haven’t got. “Don’t need anything else.”

“Oh, come on, don’t give me that.” You push half-heartedly at his chest, but he just snuggles you closer. You huff and relent, slumping against him. “There’s gotta be _something_ you want. Candy, or something for the pile, or more paint, or—”

He tenses a little against you, when you mention paint, and you glance up him. Prop your chin on his sternum and glare. He decidedly does not meet your eyes. “I—shit, I dunno. Anything from you is a gift worth having, best friend.”

“You want my blood?”

“No—fuck, shit, no,” he says, eyes widening in alarm. His eartips are turning purple, though.

You’re not gonna lie—it still weirds you out, a little bit, his freakish obsession with blood. As far as you know, he’s never actually _had_ any bloodpaint, but you know it’s, like, a _thing_ in his weird clown-cult religion. You’re not sure how or why it’s religiously significant (you should look into that, maybe, though you do loathe his religion and all it stands for). What you do know is that _apparently_ it makes him jealous that other clown-cult weirdos are getting your fucked-up blood and he’s not. 

“Gamzee,” you start, a warning tone in your voice because _fine,_ let him keep his secrets, but you’ll be damned if he’s going to lie straight to your face.

He interrupts you before you can scold him, though, shaking his head. “I don’t want your blood, best friend, for real. That’s—dangerous shit. I don’t want you hurting yourself for me, and I sure as fuck don’t want a bottle of that precious shit sittin’ around where anybody could lay eyes on it. Couldn’t paint with it, anyhow, bein’ as some troll might wonder where that color up and came from. Sure as fuck won’t smell like normal paint—ain’t worth the risk.”

That’s—surprisingly astute, coming from him. You hum softly, studying his eyes. “Okay,” you say, finally. “No blood. So what _do_ you want? C’mon, tell meee—” You whine a little at him, and he huffs out a laugh and pets down your back. 

“Alright, alright—I guess I’d kinda like—mm—” He tips his head, humming thoughtfully. “Guess maybe I’d like to have a quadrant stone from you. Although—” His ears droop some. “That might be kinda dangerous, too, it showin’ off your color and all.”

“Hey, no. We’ll figure something out, okay?” you say, determined to give your moirail what he _wants,_ damnit. “Thanks for telling me.”

You kiss the tip of his pointy-ass nose and he grins at you, then leans down and tucks a hand at the small of your back. Pulls your hips towards him to throw you off balance and leans down, kissing your lips again. Your hands latch onto his shoulders—half to keep yourself from toppling over backwards and half to keep him close.

“You’re more than welcome, palebrother,” he murmurs when he pulls back. “Now tell at me: what do _you_ want?”

“Mm—you, snuggles, now,” you decide, offering him a little thread of a beguiling purr. He seizes on it and rumbles up his own purr, low and steady, and you flush at how easily he does it. Fuck, you’ve barely _touched_ him yet. 

“Well, that’s a bitchtits deal if ever I heard one,” he purrs, curling up on the floor because your pile is all currently hanging in your closet. He tucks you down beside him, hands smoothing over your skin, and you arch your back and tangle your legs together. “One side of snuggles, comin’ right up, best friend.”

“One side?” you demand imperiously, mouthing under his jaw until he rubs his scent along your hair and horns. “I demand an _entrée_ of snuggles. A full course meal, if you would.”

“By all means.” Gamzee laughs, scratching between your grubscars, and you stretch contently and smooth your fingers through his short, fluffy hair. “One fine dining experience headed your direction, ASAP.”

And it _is,_ indeed, a fine dining experience—Gamzee, it turns out, doesn’t need to lay a single finger on your horns in order to have you purring and lazy and content. You are more than pleased with this discovery, although you take an even greater delight in getting your hands on _his_ horns. He falls apart for you beautifully (he always does), groaning and pushing into your hands and making the softest, sweetest sounds you’ve ever heard.

It is a good, good night—but you are determined that Valentine’s Day is going to be even _better._


	20. the most romantic noodle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: a smidge of self-loathing
> 
> chapter track: "my love" by when the ribbon breaks

You wake up bright and early on Valentine’s Day, because most human shops (according to Equius, anyway) like to get their close on early in the night. Fortunately, your excitement is enough to keep from feelin’  _ too  _ drowsy. You sit right up and rub sopor from your eyes after slapping off your phone alarm, wincing as a bolt of soreness runs down your back. Your lungs itch and sting, and you bury your mouth in your hands to try and quiet your coughing fit so you don’t wake your littlest brother up. Once the fit’s past, you take a big, deep breath and stumble towards the ablutions block.

Karkat is up by the time you wander back out, fresh and clean. He’s leaning against the side of his ‘coon and yawning at you, showin’ you all those cute-ass little fangs of his. “Evening, sludgefucker,” he greets you, his voice fuzzy and warm. You lean down and lick the slime off of his cheek. He sighs. 

You busy yourself gettin’ dressed as your best friend hauls himself from his ‘coon, moving slow and weary. You pick out your clothes—a pair of soft black sweatpants and a plain gray t-shirt, over which you pull a matching gray hoodie. Motherfuck, but you are looking forward to getting some clothes with actual color on them. Brother dresses much the same as you, save for his is a black hoodie instead of gray. Once the two of you are clean and dressed, he leads you out the door and stumbles downstairs to the kitchen.

Nepeta and Equius are waiting for you at the table, and Nepeta chuffs happily when she sees you. You chuff back at her—and lo and behold, she even gets a little, absent-minded chuff from Karkat as he shuffles towards the fridge. Equius looks as dazed by sleep as your Karkat is, and he mumbles something you think  _ might  _ be a good evening, if you use your imagination. Karkat slumps down at the table with a plate of cold bacon, and you sneak bites off of his plate. By the time breakfast is finished, he’s feeling awake enough to grumble at you about that, at least.

Equius is a little more awake, too, as he leads the three of you to the laundromat—it poses as the front of the little base here, your door to the outside world. You’re practically vibrating with excitement, your hand wrapped tight around your best friend’s. Through the windows, you can see the tall, blocky shapes of buildings and the gleam of the fading red sunshine. Neon lights pool in halos around signs, and there’s a thick layer of gleaming frost on most every surface you look at. Equius opens the door for the three of you, and you give your Karkat’s hand one last squeeze before stepping out into the world. 

The first thing you notice is that  _ motherfuck,  _ the world is cold. Your breath clouds around your mouth, the breeze curling through your hoodie and sending a shiver down your spine. 

“Shit,” Karkat hisses, huddling closer to you. “Did it have to be so damn  _ cold?” _

“Well, it is the middle of winter.” Equius closes the door carefully behind you, then offers Nepeta his hand. She takes it enthusiastically, wrapping her tiny fingers fiercely around his, her tail twitching with excitement. “I don’t know what else you would have been expecting.”

Karkat makes an annoyed little spitting sound, and you wrap an arm around his shoulders. Hustle on behind Equius as he leads you to the first shop, eager to get yourself (and your warm-blooded little brother) out of the chill. Humans pass you as you stroll down the sidewalk—all  _ kinds  _ of humans. Dark ones and pale ones and in-between ones, ones with black hair and brown hair and pale hair and  _ pink  _ hair,  _ holy fuck  _ that’s cool. They wear all kinds of bright colors, most all bundled up in big coats and jackets with stompy little boots. There are even a few tiny humans—wigglers, you guess. They cling onto the adults’ hands like it ain’t no thing, chittering happily in their soft, clear little voices.

You are motherfucking  _ amazed.  _

There are even more humans inside the shop, though. They bustle around each other in a tangle of noise and movement and warmth. You don’t much mind—you like yourself a crowd, most times—but your brother is twitching nervously beside you, nostrils flared and ears flattening every time he hears something new. You gotta admit, it’s a  _ little  _ overwhelming, all this newness after so much of the sameness. But as long as you’ve got your brother, you’ll be okay. You keep a tight hold of his hand, breathe deep, and follow your friends into the new.  After a while, it’s easy to drown out all the noise and color around you—especially when you get to pickin’ out new clothes. Karkat takes a while longer to settle himself, leaning hard against your side and watching the space around you nervously. You pet a hand lazily down his back as you peek through some t-shirts, hoping to offer him some of your calm, and eventually you feel him relax against you.

“What you think about this one, best friend?” you ask, holding up a bright purple t-shirt; it’s simple, and not quite your exact shade, but it’s bright enough to make you downright merry. 

“It’s good,” Karkat says, reaching out to run his fingers along the fabric. “Put it in the cart and you can try it on before we buy it. You need to get some winter stuff too, though. It’s cold out there.”

You agree wholeheartedly, and by the time you’re done with your clothes shoppin’ you have a good fuckin’ haul: a heavy winter coat, in purple and gray, along with several long-sleeved shirts and sweaters, gloves, a knit hat what you'll need to poke holes in for your horns, and some cute-ass fuckin’ purple polka-dotted snowboots. Your little brother picks out much of the same, in grays and blacks, though his little snowboots look more like badass combat boots than anything else.  As the two of you try on your clothes (no sense in wasting what little money you have on somethin’ that don’t fit), Nepeta and Equius scurry off to do their own shopping. The four of you meet back up at the front of the shop, sylladexes filled with big plastic bags, and then you’re off again. You hear Karkat let out a little breath once you leave the shop, and you pat him right between the horns, humming sympathetically. 

At the next shop, you get to pick out some piling shit, which is  _ awesome.  _ Karkat picks out the biggest, softest gray blanket you’ve ever laid eyes on, and you snuggle it in your arms the whole time you’re in that store. You both pick out some fluffy pillows (yours in purple and his in black), and Karkat concedes to allow you exactly  _ one  _ bike horn. Once you’ve got enough for a sensible pile, you restrain from buyin’ anything else—what more you want has to be bought secret from him,  _ for  _ him. You buy some sensible stuff in that same shop—fangpaste and horn polishin’ shit, soaps and tissues and slippers, water bottles for your trainin’ and a bookmark for your brother’s novels. 

Once you’re done shoppin’ there, though, it comes time for you all to part.

“Right.” Karkat huffs a little, breath curling in white streamers around his mouth. The four of you stand outside that cute little shop, streetlights gleaming overhead. The dark has well and truly settled over the sky, now. He stomps his little feet to keep them warm, and you rub a hand briskly over his shoulder. “Here’s where I’m abandoning you, assholes. I have to go buy some stuff—” He shoots you a look.  _ “Secret  _ stuff, so you stay with Nepeta and Equius, got it?”

“Aww, best friend.” You whine a little, but you ain’t too heartbroken. You gotta buy secret stuff for him, too. Still, you don’t much appreciate the thought of him wanderin’ around alone. “You ought not go alone. Take Equius or Nepeta with you. I—”

“I’m going with Gamzee,” Nepeta declares, climbing up you like a tree and draping herself around your shoulders. Her tail flicks happily, tickling your jaw, and you giggle and shake your head. “Equius, you go with Karkitty. Make sure he stays safe.”

“Nepeta, I don’t appreciate the thought of you roaming around the city without me. What if you’re hurt?” Equius says, folding his arms over his great big chest. Karkat looks equally disgruntled, his ears flattening. 

“I won’t be, purromise,” Nepeta says, kneading at your shoulder with her little claws. “Who’s gonna try to hurt me with a big, tall highblood like this around, after all?” There’s a teasing lilt to her voice, and she flicks her tail across your ears. You grin and swat playfully at it. “Look how scaaaary he is.”

“So scary,” Karkat says, his voice dry. “Seriously, though, I’m fine going alone. You three can stay together.”

“Nuh-uh, best friend. Can’t let you go alone. You stick with Equius or I’ll have to follow you around like the lovesick motherfuckin’ fool I am.” You grin at him and he huffs at you, puts his little hands on his hips all stubborn. “C’mon, now. Won’t be for but a little while. We’ll meet you all for lunch, yeah?”

Best friend and Equius protest a little more, shootin’ unsubtle glares between the two of them, but eventually you and Nepeta win out. The cold does hurry your argument along, fortunately, with the four of you all eager to be out of the wind. You still get a little prickle of nerves as your brother leaves your sight, and you grind your teeth anxiously as you round a corner. He'll be okay. He's not in the base, not anywhere near Nuodel, he'll be okay.

“Where to now, sister?” you ask Nepeta, who rides along on your shoulders. 

“He’ll be okay,” Nepeta says, instead of answering you. You relax some. She nestles her sharp chin between your horns and you feel her yawn. “Don’t worry. Equius won’t let anything happen to him—he’s a good troll. I know maybe Karkitty doesn’t always feel that way, but it’s true.”

“I believe you,” you tell her, and you do. 

She hums happily, her tail curling around your arm. There’s no warmth in it—just metal and wires under false fur, somethin’ Equius designed special for her—but it’s comforting nevertheless. “Good. Mm—now, what are we getting?”

“Valentine’s Day presents,” you say, brightening up some. You don’t have to be worried about Karkat being gone from you in a strange city as long as you think on how happy he’ll be when you give him his presents. “I wanna get him somethin’ cute for the pile, and I was thinkin’ about making him a painting. Don’t have any paints or canvas, though. Shit’s downright unseemly.”

“Aww—” Nepeta chirps happily. “Those are cute ideas, Gamzee. Um—I was also wondering—” She shifts a little bit on your shoulders, her tail tightening around your bicep. “If it’s alright with you, I mean, I was thinking about maybe getting Karkitty something myself?”

She says the last little bit in a rush, and it takes you a minute to catch up—takes you even longer to realize what that shit means. “Oh, shit, sister—” You try to look at her, but she’s got her head planted solidly between your horns. “You nursin’ a  _ crush?” _

She clears her throat. Sounds a little squeakier than her usual. Oh  _ shit.  _ “I—I mean, maybe just a little—”

“Shit.” You let out a gusty breath, a little bit in awe. Your lungs don’t take too kindly to that, and you near about double over in another coughing fit, your little sister clinging to your horntips to keep from slidin’ right off her perch. “You—Karkat— _ shit,  _ sister.”

“I won’t do anything about it, if you don’t—approve,” she says, her voice quiet. Nervous, almost, you think. “I purromise. That’s why I wanted to ask you first. Is it—okay?”

“What quadrant you anglin’ for?” you ask, twisting your head around once you straighten up. She lets you, this time, slidin’ down to stand beside you. Won’t meet your eyes, but her cheeks are turnin’ some kinda fierce olive, her hands balled up into little fists at her sides. 

“Hearts,” she says, shuffling her feet together. Her tail curls around her own leg. “He’s—cute, you know? Grumpy and—and maybe kind of an asshole, but I think he’s sweet. And the way he looks at you, I just—I know there’s something beneath that grumpy part he plays.”

Well. She’s not wrong about that, for sure. “Sister, I ain’t got no right to tell either one of you how to run your quadrants. You don’t need my permission, if you got a want to court my littlest brother.”

“Yeah, I know I don’t  _ need  _ it, but—it felt right. If we’re gonna be quadrantcorners, we should be on good terms, right? And I also, um—” She clears her throat, ducking her head. “I wanted to know if he—ever thought about me, that way.”

“Aw, sis.” You set a hand on her hat, between her horns. She glances shyly up at you. Looks hells of fucking young, all of a sudden, though you know her to be a few perigees older than you. “I gotta be honest with you. Karkat ain’t mentioned nothin’ of the sort about you. He looks on you as friend, but nothing more, so far as I’m motherfuckin’ aware.”

Nepeta’s shoulders slump a little, eyes dropping—but there’s a determined set to her jaw. “Right. That’s—I figured as much. Is there someone else…?”

You shake your head. “Nah. Leastways not that he’s told me.”

“Good.” She looks up at you again, meets your eyes. “I’m gonna try it, if you don’t have any complaints to make. Maybe one day he’ll come around, right?”

“Maybe,” you agree, offering her a hopeful little smile. “Now, then. What were  _ you  _ planning to get my lovely little brother on this most romantic of holidays?”

“Chocolate,” Nepeta says immediately, her eyes brightening. She trots ahead of you, and you follow after, grinnin’. It’s cute to see somebody else crushin’ on your Karkat. It is goddamn  _ relatable.  _ You’re surprised the whole damn world ain’t in love with his sweet little self.  _ “Everybody  _ likes chocolate, right?”

“Well, you gotta be right about that, sister,” you agree, ducking into a small cornershop after you. “Ain’t never met a troll who could complain about it, anyhow.”

“See? It’s a foolpurroof plan,” she declares, leading you straight to the back of the shop. There are rows and rows of heart-shaped boxes wrapped in glittering red paper, and Nepeta eyes all of them intently. “I’m gonna pick something meowt here—you can go get what you need to, though, and I’ll meet you at the furont.” 

“You got it, motherfucker,” you agree, bouncing on your toes in excitement. There’s so much  _ stuff  _ around you—how can you  _ not  _ find something Karkat will like? You slip away from your sister and start your browsin’, humming softly under your breath. Humans duck out of your way when they see you coming, for which you’re grateful—you’d hate to bump into one. They look so tiny and fragile, paper skin and flat teeth. 

As you’re looking through a selection of brightly-colored paints, you get a snapchat from Tavros (who you had, of course, roped into Snapchat shortly after John had roped you and Karkat in). You beam and open it up right quick—it’s a picture of him grinning up at his phone, eyes bright and warm, with little pink hearts drifting around him. The caption across the middle of the picture reads:  _ hAPPY vALENTINE’S dAY, gAMZEE! i HOPE YOU HAVE A SUPER NICE ONE! _

Oh  _ wow.  _ You remember, all of a sudden, that Nepeta isn’t the only one nursin’ a flushcrush for one fine-ass motherfucker.

You send him a snap back of yourself, sticking your tongue out and giving the camera a wink. Flick through the filters until you can find one with matching hearts, then type out a quick caption:  _ sHiT bRo, ThAnKs A bUnCh! I hOpE yOu HaVe YoUrSeLf OnE bItChTiTs MoThErFuCkIn VaLeNtInE’s DaY tOo!  _

And then, while you’re thinkin’ about it, you go ahead and send a Valentine’s Day snap to all yours friends what you’ve weasled into Snapchat—Sollux and John and Nepeta and Equius and your Karkat, too. Karkat replies almost right away, with a snap of his scowly little face (and Equius brooding away in the background), sayin’:  _ I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SHOPPING, JACKASS, NOT SNAPCHATTING. _

To which you respond with a snap of a cute-ass fuzzy red bear. _ iT’s YoU! _

That gets you a snap of his middle finger. You laugh and tuck your phone away, goin’ back to your shopping—the sooner you buy some shit, the sooner you can get back to that grouchy little motherfucker. You end up picking out a few paints, monochromes and shades of red, and a single canvas. After that you chew your lip, worrying on what to get for your pile, when your eyes lands on the most motherfucking  _ perfect  _ thing. It’s a stuffed animal—a crab, with pincers that remind you of the crabshitter and bright red fuzz that reminds you of Karkat. It ain’t small, either—near about the size of those pillows you bought earlier, a real armful, and when you snuggle it close it’s nice and soft. 

“Woah.” When you glance over your shoulder, Nepeta is staring at you with wide gray eyes. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. You  _ have  _ to get it.”

And, well, that’s all the encouragement  _ you  _ need. You settle the crab all comfy in the cart, along with your paint and canvas, and Nepeta settles in a bright red, heart-shaped box next to it. “There,” you say, quite motherfuckin’ satisified with yourself. “Just one last thing, sister, and we’ll be good to go.”

“Mm? What else are you getting?” she asks, trotting along behind you as you head for the back of the store, where you’d seen the clothes.

“I’m giving Karkat a date tonight,” you inform her, a little bit proud of yourself. You haven’t been on a real, actual date night with your moirail in  _ forever.  _ You’re not quite confident enough that you can take him  _ out  _ on a date, with this city bein’ so new and big to both of you, but you figure you can set up a cozy little dinner date back at the base easy enough. “So I gotta look slick, you feel?”

_ “Oh—”  _ Nepeta gives her hands an excited little shake, taking the lead and hauling you towards a rack of shirts. “That’s so  _ cute.  _ Here—let me help.”

You run through a few outfits with her, examining each one in the dressing room mirror. The too-big sweater and sweatpants are  _ too  _ overtly pale, you think. The suit is too formal (and far too expensive). You settle on something of an in-between: a pale lavender button-up with gray slacks. Makes you feel like a motherfucking  _ gentleman.  _ It is with regret you slip back into your sweats and hoodie, but the regret lifts quickly when you realize you can meet back up with your brother now.

You buy your shit, then captchalogue it so best friend won’t be able to get his guess on at what you’ve got. “Where we headed for lunch, little sister?” you ask Nepeta as you exit the store. She climbs up your back again, draping herself around your shoulders like a cozy little scarf. 

“Los Tules. They’ve got really great tacos—you ever had a taco?”

You shake your head, and Nepeta chirrups in excitement. She steers you by your horntips, nudging you to turn onto all the right streets until you find yourself in front of a square, brightly-colored building with big windows. Inside, the lights gleam, warm and welcoming. You duck inside, and a little bell jingles merrily over your head. The scent of salt and spice and meat is like a blast in the face, and your mouth begins to water almost immediately.

“Mm—shit sure smells good,” you say. The building is mostly empty, but there’s a little human wiping down the countertop near the back of the building, and she glances up when she hears you—her eyes widen in what you  _ think  _ is alarm, though it’s hard to tell with those round, immobile ears they have. You offer her a big smile to comfort her, but you—don’t really think it works, because her eyes get bigger, oops.

“Hola, Isabella,” Nepeta says, her voice warm and bright. She slithers down off of your shoulder, waving at the human. “Buenas noches.”

The little human relaxes, her shoulders slumping. “Hola, Nepeta.  Cómo está usted?”

“Muy bien.” Nepeta chirps, hopping up onto a stool in front of the counter. She pats the stool next to her, glancing back at you and switching back to Alternian to say, “C’mon, have a seat. This is Isabella. She’s really nice, and she makes the  _ best  _ tacos, purromise.”

You hesitantly take a seat on the stool, folding your hands in your lap and slumping your shoulders so you look a little less big. Lowering your voice, you carefully murmur to Nepeta, “What—er, what do all those motherfuckin’ words mean? What you were saying?” You think you mighta missed out on a big chunk of English learning, you bein’ so adrift for a simple greeting.

“Oh!” Nepeta beams, her tail swishing. “That was Spanish. I said ‘hi, good evening’ and she said ‘hi, how are you?’ and then I told her I was very good.”

“Spanish?”

“Yeah—it’s another human language.”

“They have more than  _ one?” _

Nepeta laughs, grinning at you with all her tiny pointed teeth. “They have  _ hundreds.” _

“Mother _ fucker.” _

The two of you chat a while, Nepeta bouncing between English and Spanish. She says she don’t know much Spanish, but it’s sure as fuck more than you know. Isabella, it turns out, knows a smattering of both English and Alternian, though her Alternian’s all heavily accented—her little human throat just can’t make the clicks and rattles it needs to. The three of you still manage to get along anyway, filling the gaps in your vocabulary with enthusiastic pointing and some bitchin’ charades. 

It’s not but ten minutes before you hear the bell over the door jingle again, and you scent your brother before you see him—warm spice and burnin’ red sunshine, overlapping with Equius’ cooler, steelier (and much sweatier) scent. You whip around and grin at him with all your fangs. “Hey, best friend! We’re gonna have  _ tacos.” _

He rolls his eyes but stomps his little self over to you, climbing up onto a stool. “Yeah, assmunch. That’s the highlight of my fuckin’ night. God knows shopping isn’t.” 

“Hola, Equius,” Isabella calls, busy fussin’ over a pot of some dark, glossy brew. 

“Hello, Isabella.” Equius seats himself next to Nepeta, his back all stiff and formal. “Are we all ready to place our orders?”

“I am,” Nepeta says immediately, her eyes brightening. She leans against Equius, and he pats her tiny head solemnly between her horns. “I want enchiladas de pollo, please. Oh, and that  _ coffee. _ ”

“And I’ll have a guacamole tostada dinner with a glass of milk,” Equius says.

Isabella scribbles something down on a little notebook, then glances expectantly at you and Karkat. “Uh, shit—” you start, real intelligent-like, before Nepeta interrupts.

“The  _ tacoooos,”  _ she hisses under her breath, real (not) subtle. “You want the  _ tacoooos.” _

“The tacos,” you agree.

“No cheese,” Karkat adds. “I’ll have a glass of water with mine. What do you want to drink, asshole?”

“Uuuh—you got Faygo?”

Isabella does not, as it turns out, have any Faygo—but she does have some  _ awesome  _ sugary shit she calls Fanta, which is kinda almost like orange-flavored Faygo, only fizzier. It tingles and buzzes along your tongue as you suck it down through the straw she gives you. Your teeth poke holes right through the flimsy plastic, until Karkat gets so awful annoyed at your slurpin’ he snatches it away from you. 

“You uncivilized beast,” he grouches, bumping his head against your shoulder. “Just drink like a normal fucking troll already.”

“You bet, little brother.” You ruffle his hair—er, well, you rub your hand across his hair in what way  _ would  _ have ruffled it, if there’d been more than a couple inches to ruffle. You pick your glass up and drink from it like a normal fucking troll, then set it down and ask, “So how’d your secret shoppin’ go, anyway?”

Karkat hums a little, twisting his own glass between his palms. “Well. It wasn’t  _ awful,  _ I guess.” He shoots a glance over your head, and Nepeta’s, to glower at Equius. Drops his voice some and says, “I still can’t believe you left me alone with that asshole, though.”

“Aww, bro—figured you two needed some time to warm up to each other.” You grin at him and he huffs, puts his chin on the counter and glares at his water. It’s fogging up between his hands, condensing with the heat of him. You lean over and rest your head against his shoulder, soak up some of that heat yourself. “Glad you got your shoppin’ done, though.”

“Mm. Me too.” His shoulder twitches, but he doesn’t snap at you, so you don’t feel much inclined to move. “How was your shopping?”

“It went fine and motherfuckin’ dandily, little brother.” You squirm a little in excitement—you can’t wait to give at him the presents you’ve got. 

“Dare I ask what you got?”

“It’s a  _ seeecret,”  _ you say in a sing-song voice, and he hums a little. Thoughtful, you think.

“You and your secrets,” he murmurs. Don’t sound altogether too happy. You dart up and blow a raspberry against his cheek, and he shrieks and swears and bats at you. You laugh and duck away from his hands, grinnin’ something fierce. If there’s one thing you’re good at it, it’s yankin’ your brother out of his melancholy—usually by doin’ something downright stupid, sure, but it  _ works.  _

Isabella sweeps out of her kitchen a few minutes later, drifting towards you in a cloud of steam and strong smells. She sets a plate down in front of each of you—yours has three strange little yellow shells on it, shaped like a long-ways cup. Inside of each there’s a pile of meat, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and some other shit you don’t know the name of. There’s pale orange rice and brown beans makin’ themselves at home on the side of the plate. The scent is motherfucking  _ gorgeous.  _

You set your chin on the table and stare eagerly at it, licking your teeth. Karkat has a plate what matches yours, and his nostrils are twitching all excited, too. You say your most Messiahs-deserved thank yous to Isabella, then dig into your rice and beans—those you know how to eat, at least. The shells (what the actual tacos are, you think) you ain’t quite certain—a spoon, to scoop out the innards then get to eatin’ the shell? Or do you eat it all at once? 

Karkat makes his decision, first, forgoin’ the rice and beans in favor of picking up a taco and crunching his teeth right through it. He makes a sound fit for the pile—a low, delighted little groan that sets your ears flicking and your horns tingling. “Good, brother?” you ask him, and he nods rapidly, chowing his way steadily through his tacos.

You gotta agree with him, once you get to your own tacos. They are a motherfucking  _ delight,  _ crunchy and soft in equal measure, all salt and hot spice and grease. This alone, you think, was worth crossing the universe for, and you tell Isabella as much in Alternian—though you’re not certain how much she understands. She just smiles kinda lost at you, says somethin’ in Spanish, and slides you a refill on your Fanta. You see Karkat get a little prickly when her hand nears your plate uninvited, his upper lip pulling back from his fangs—but he settles himself down when she moves away again, leaving your food untouched and untaken. 

By the time you’re finished, you feel fit to pop, and you stretch back so much you nearly topple off of your stool. It’s only Karkat’s hand at your back that reminds you to keep your balance, and you flash him a grateful smile. You almost get one back—a little lift of his lips before he turns back to nursin’ his water. Beside you, Nepeta sighs happily, slouching over the counter. Her mug of coffee—that dark, strong-scented brew Isabella was makin’ earlier—is nestled between her palms, steam curlin’ up off of it in pale tendrils. 

“Good, huh?” she asks, flicking her eyes towards you. She looks a little smug, but you suppose she’s earned it.

_ “Fuck  _ yeah, sister.” You mimic her, slumping over the counter and yawning. You feel about ready for a nap, after that hearty meal. “That shit was the motherfucking  _ bomb.” _

“You haven’t even had the best part yet,” she adds, and  _ that  _ gets your attention, for sure. “Dessert—bet you’ve never had sopapilla. Hey Isabellaaaaa—”

Ain’t but ten minutes later a plate of fluffy, golden pastries appears in front of you with a little pot of honey. Karkat glances away from his phone, pricking his ears up. “The fuck is  _ that?”  _ he asks. 

“Sopapilla,” you tell him, snatching a pastry and dipping it into the honey before offering it to him. “Try?”

He gingerly takes the pastry from you with his claws, wrinkling his nose up when his fingers get honey-sticky before he pops it into his mouth. Barely closes his mouth before his eyes widen, ears flicking forward in surprise, and then—holy motherfucking  _ shit,  _ you think you actually hear a thread of a purr from his chest. He cuts it off right quick, but god _ damn,  _ you gotta get this boy in a pile. He can’t just be  _ makin’  _ cute-ass noises like that out in the open.

“Holy shit,” Karkat says, already reachin’ across you at the plate. “It’s like—everything good in the universe put inside of some dough. Give. Fucking give give give—”

And give you do, if only to see his blissed-out expression as he works his way through five of those little pastries. You munch on a second one, yourself. They’re  _ good,  _ but you don’t think you’re appreciating them near as much as your best friend is. “Karkitty likes those, huh?” Nepeta asks, peeking around your shoulder and grinning. “They’re purr-tty good, am I right?”

Karkat flips her off and grabs a sixth pastry.

You’re starting to get worried that he might make himself sick, after the seventh, so you reach out and take his little hands. Glance around real quick to make sure Isabella’s not watching, then set to work cleanin’ him off. Rasp your tongue over his fingers and palms, lapping up the crumbs and honey that stick there, real quick but thorough. And Karkat (for all he’ll protest _you’re_ the pervert) doesn’t yank his hands away until you’re finished.

“Fucking  _ pervert,”  _ he hisses—yep. Saw  _ that  _ one coming, for sure. 

“Just for you, best friend.” You lick your own hands clean and then pat him between the horns, and he snaps his teeth playfully at your fingers. “Anyway, you best not be makin’ yourself sick. We’re havin’ a special dinner tonight.”

“Oh,  _ are  _ we? First I’ve heard of it.”

“Good,” you say, a little smugly. “It was a secret.”

Karkat rolls his eyes and flips you off, then goes back to scowling at his phone. He’s trolling John, you think, if that exasperated look on his face is anything to go by. You check your own phone as Equius and Nepeta finish off the sopapilla—John’s answered your snap, and so have Sollux and Equius. You flick through their responses, humming happily under your breath because  _ holy shit  _ you love your friends.

John’s sent you a snap of himself, along with two other kids, in a place you recognize from several of his other snaps—high school. Like schoolfeeding, but in a building, with adults. (You don’t get it, but whatever humans want to be doing with their wigglers, you suppose.) You recognize the kid on his left, too. It’s that troll from a few of his earlier snaps, the tealblood with bright red glasses. The one on his right is unfamiliar to you—it’s a human with dark skin and eyes, but the palest hair you’ve ever goddamn  _ seen.  _ It’s not quite white, but it’s just about there. There’s a bright pink hairband holding their bangs back, and they wear a matching pink skirt.  _ happy valentine’s day, gamzee! i hope you and karkat have a great time :) (rose and terezi say to tell you happy valentine’s day, too!) _

Aw, shit—now you’re even getting well-wishes from people you don’t know. You kinda like this human holiday thing. Equius’ response is a little more formal; just a picture of him offering the camera a blank (and sweaty) look, with Karkat browsin’ shelves in the background.  _ D—> A happy va1entine’s day t0 y0u as we11, highb100d _

Sollux’s snap is of him grinning at the camera. There’s a hospital bed in the background, within which another troll lies, also grinning up at you. She has piles and piles of dark hair, out of which curl a pair of heavy, sickly-pale horns. There are wires and tubes all over the place, but she’s got a gleam in her eyes what makes her look more determined than any healthy troll you’ve seen. Farther back, there’s a vase of yellow and red roses.  _ happy valentiine’2 day two you and kk, you nerd2! _

Shit’s fucking  _ cute.  _ This Valentine’s Day thing is the motherfuckin’ money.

“Alright, assholes.” Karkat hops off of the stool, stretching himself out and cracking his neck. You wince for him—little guy’s too tense. You gotta make sure you get him all loosened out for you this morning. “Let’s head back. I’ve got better shit to do then sit around here all night.”

And so off you go—you thank Isabella and wave cheerfully at her as you duck out of the restaurant and follow after your little brother. Nepeta and Equius stick close to your heels, and you hear little sister regaling her moirail with your midnight adventures. Once you get back to the base, you say your most gracious goodbyes to the two of them. You and Karkat head up to your block, and he lets out a soft breath once the door shuts behind you.

“Thank god that’s over,” he says, rubbing his temples. “Why the fuck do humans have to live in such big cities, seriously? It’s gross.”

“I think it’s kinda motherfuckin’ nice.” You shed your jacket, warmin’ up quick now you’re inside. “Bein’ all close to so many people—you’d never be lonely.”

Karkat snorts. “Somehow I don’t think that’s the case.” He pauses, cocks his head a little, then leans up on tiptoe and bumps his forehead against your jaw. “But I’m glad you like it here, nookmunch.”

You hum happily at him. Lean down and press a kiss to the tip of his stubby little nose, and he closes his eyes and lets you. Most motherfucking miraculous thing, him. “Thanks, little motherfucker. Now, then—” You pap his stomach gently. “I gotta be doin’ some stuff, so you stay here and make yourself comfy, yeah?”

He arches an eyebrow at you. “Doing  _ stuff?  _ That doesn’t sound fucking suspicious at  _ all _ .”

“All good stuff, all good stuff,” you assure him, holding up your hands all innocent. “I’ll be back around dinnertime, promise. In the meantime—” You decaptchalogue the pillows and the horn you’d bought for your pile, winking at him just to watch him flush. “Why don’t you get our pile good ‘n comfy? Gonna be needin’ it, come dawn.”

You duck out of the block on a wave of his blusterin’ and swearin’ after you, laughin’ your own head off ‘cause he’s just the  _ funniest  _ little thing when he gets to bitching at you for making him blush. You trot down to the kitchen, waving a hello to a few of of the other purpleblood wigglers you find there. They wave back at you and flick their ears all friendly-like, and for a second, you feel at home. You chat absently with them as you go about preparing your dinner—you’re not much of a chef, but you asked John, and he said spaghetti was the most romantic noodle. So spaghetti you make, along with a bowl full of chopped fruit for both of you (still tryin’ to get your nutrition back on par) and two glasses of grape juice. 

You captchalogue it all, then troll your brother, tellin’ at him to go colonize some other block for a while. He gripes at you, but does eventually yield, and you get yourself back to your empty block right quick. The first thing you up and notice is the pile, which fills you with a sense of contentment you didn’t even know you’d been missin’. It’s a big mound of pillows, along with that soft gray blanket and your little honkin’ horn tucked near the center. Karkat’s secreted in a few of his romcoms, too, so you follow suit and tuck a few empty greasepaint containers into it. There.  _ That’s  _ a pile. All it’s missin’ is some old clothes and well-worn comfort items, but those’ll come with time. The older a pile, the better.

You nuzzle down into it for juuuust a motherfuckin’ second, kneading at the big, fat pillows with your claws. It smells like your best friend already—little motherfucker must’ve scent-marked it up for you already. A low, satisfied chirr rolls through your throat, imagin’ Karkat layin’ his claim on this little bit of your territory. You wallow a little bit in the pile yourself, tryin’ to get a smidge of your scent on everything you touch. Yours. This pile is yours, just like this block is yours, just like  _ Karkat  _ is yours. You are well motherfucking satisfied with the thought.

But you ought not make your palemate stay away  _ too  _ long, so you pull yourself reluctantly from the pile. You decaptachalogue your meals, setting one on each dresser, and then tug on your fancy clothes. Snatch a few mouthfuls of sopor (cold, ick). Brush your fangs and trim your claws, make yourself nice and neat for your palemate, then turn your attention to your horns. They’re paler than they ought be, the outer layers flaky and the roots soft. 

Malnutrition’s at fault, your brother had told you. You ain’t never had the  _ shiniest  _ horns, but they got hells of fucking worse on that spaceship. You can’t hardly make them look any better, either—polishin’ helps with the flakes, but it’s only perigees of vitamins and shit what’ll make them to darken and harden again. Karkat’s aren’t too much better, but he won’t let you fuss over them the way you want to. Least you can do is pester him to take care of them himself, you suppose, which you ought do soon. God knows he pesters you enough about yours, and you’re fair certain if you put it off any longer he’d wrap you in a headlock and polish ‘em himself. You certainly ain’t  _ opposed  _ to that, but you do want to look good for a brother come morn, so you get to work.

You find your new polishin’ kit stored under the sink already. Grab the grittin’ paper and get to work scraping it over your horns, letting it rub off the loose flakes. You’re real careful trying to scrub along the ridges, especially where your horn does a little twist ‘round in the middle, though it’s motherfuckin’ difficult as shit to see if you’re doing it right. Once you’re done gritting them off, you wash ‘em down with soap and water and then slather on some oil. Let it sit a couple minutes, soak into the keratin, and then wipe it off. Polish goes on next, and then you buff ‘em down with the buffing cloth. Examine them carefully in the mirror, tilting your head this way and that, and—

And feel a whole lot of motherfucking insecure, all of a sudden.

Who are you, to try and be worthy of this universe’s brightest miracle? You, with your sickly horns and crooked yellow fangs. You, with your ragged claws and thin, worthless wiggler skin. You, with your cheap button-up and doodled-on sneakers. You, with your rattling lungs and your sopor and your  _ weakness. _

You take a shuddery breath and close your eyes. You are not worth your Karkat. You can never be. But fuck if you aren’t going to  _ try.  _ You set your jaw and square your shoulders, straighten up your facepaint, and march back into your block. You have a motherfucking miracle to woo. 

You set the crab you’d bought in the pile, where he can see it easy, and then you sit down and start to paint. It’s quick, hasty—your want for him bleeds into every brush stroke, your want to troll him right now and have him back at your side, but you  _ can’t,  _ because you’re keeping secrets. Benign secrets, this time, but secrets all the same, and they do ever drive you farther from him. You paint your unworthiness in the corners, splotches of black and the deep gray of your greasepaint. Paler gray near the center—his gray—and in the low right corner, your most precious secret of all: deep, vibrant red that bleeds out into the dark monochromes around it. His red. Your Karkat, shining out into all your unworthiness and making it something remarkable.

Messiahs, but you love him so. 

You captchalogue the painting to let it dry, wash your hands free of paint and then troll your little brother to summon him back to you. He’s there in minutes, mouth already open to grouch at you when you open the door—but he stops short, eyes trailing wide from the tips of your fresh-polished horns to your button-up to your sneakers. “The  _ fuck?”  _ he asks.

You hold the door open for him, all gentlemanly-like and suave, the way you know he likes. “Best beloved,” you say—drop your voice low and silky, watch his cheeks turn red for you. “Would you do this motherfucker the honor of a date?”

He stares up at you a second, mouth moving noiselessly (you do love gettin’ him speechless) before he says, “I—you—fuck. You big dumbass, do you really have to fucking ask?” He sets his hand on your arm and leans up, kisses your chin, the corner of your mouth, your lips. “My god, you’re fucking ridiculous. You’re so goddamn pitiful I can’t even  _ stand  _ it.  _ Look  _ at you.”

“So is that a yes?” you murmur against his mouth, let him push you back into the block and close the door behind him. Hear the click as it locks. 

“Fuck yes.” He curls his fingers into your hair and guides you down to him, parts his lips so you can kiss him deeper—touch the tips of his fangs with your tongue, taste his breath. “What the hell for, though? What’s the occasion?”

“Valentine’s Day, little motherfucker,” you say, pulling back to rest your forehead against his. His fingers skate around your horns, smooth over the ridges of them, and you feel a pleasant ripple of sensation down your spine as they near the bases. “I wanted to do somethin’ special for you, and we haven’t had a proper date in perigees. Hope you don’t mind a fucker springin’ it on you kinda sudden—”

_ “Mind?”  _ Karkat demands, pulling back and squishing your cheeks between his palms.  _ “Hell  _ no. This is the most sickeningly romantic thing in the world and I love it and I love you and I will forever burn in the fires of my globes-rotting shame for admitting it but you are a goddamn casanova, sometimes, seriously. How the fuck did I get so lucky?”

You laugh and wind your arms around him, squeeze him close and pull him further into the block. “I ask myself that very thing every motherfuckin’ night, best friend. We’re the luckiest motherfuckers in the world, us.” You smile at him, soft and sweet, and he reaches up and fits his palm against your cheek. You close your eyes and lean into him.

“Hey, hang on. Step back—I want to look at you.” You hesitate a second, but his orders are ever yours to follow, so step back you do. His eyes roam up and down you again, and you shift a teeny-tiny bit anxiously, insecurities bubblin’ in your chest—but when his eyes meet yours again, there’s something hungry in them. His pupils are swollen wide with want, and it makes some little part of you curl up and purr in satisfaction. Yeah. Yeah, you did that to your palemate. You made him  _ want  _ you.

“Problem, brother?” you tease a little, flicking your ears at him. 

“Yeah, you.” He snuggles up against you again, rubbing his cheek against your collarbone. Smells pale already, soft and warm, unknotting all that tension you got held inside quick as anything. “How dare you be so fucking  _ handsome,  _ seriously. Fuck you. Do you even know how good you look?” 

You do not, but you rattle off a little purr at him anyways, because you sure as hell like hearin’ him tell you.

“Yeah, goddamn you.” He leans up and brushes a thumb over your eyebrows, studying you carefully. “You’re the handsomest troll in the fucking universe, and don’t you fucking forget it. You even polished your horns, didn’t you? Let me see—” He reaches up, wraps a hand around the oranges of your horns and guides your head down. You let him, easy as anything—show him the nape of your neck and tilt the tips of your horns away, soft and relaxed as putty. He chitters at you for that, low and approving, and it’s as much as reward as you could ever ask for.

“Did I up and do it right, brother?” you ask, turning an ear towards him, hopin’ you haven’t missed a spot. 

“Yeah, actually,” he says, sounding a little bit surprised, and a little thrill of pleasure runs through you.  _ Hell yeah,  _ you did it right. “You did a good job.” He rubs a thumb along the twist of your horn, humming. You think he sounds pleased. 

“Glad to motherfuckin’ hear it,” you say, grinning, and he bumps his head affectionately against yours. “Now, then—I got a motherfucker’s dinner waiting, if he’ll have it with me.”

“You made dinner, too?” He glances around the block, eyes softening when he sees the plates on your dressers. “Fuck you,” he adds, real sweet and affectionate, and you loop an arm around his shoulders and push him to sit in the pile. His eyes latch onto the bright red crab right quick, narrowing some, and your heart quickens. Fuck, but you hope he likes it. Hope you haven’t overstepped your bounds, hope this doesn’t count as pushing about his lusus. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s your present, best friend,” you tell, scooping up the plates. Set one his lap and settle in front of the pile with your own. “Well—one of ‘em, anyway. I thought—I mean, the little motherfucker’s soft enough for the pile, and he reminded me of your lusus, and of you, so I—”

Karkat flaps a hand at you and you shut your mouth, watching careful as he examines the crab. He runs his fingers along its pincers, along its beady black eyes and soft red fuzz, the world’s tiniest frown on his face. You half expect him to reject it, and the thought sends a sharp little pang through you. You done bad, done wrong as for your palemate, and you—

“He’s perfect,” your best friend says, nodding his chin down real determined and hugging the crab tight to his chest after setting his plate of food aside. He draws his jaw across the crab’s pincers, claims it for himself, and you let out a gusty, relieved breath. “He’s absolutely perfect. Shit, thank you—you didn’t have to do this, seriously—”

“I wanted to,” you tell him, leaning forward to kiss his nose. “You deserve it, palest. Oh, and here—take a motherfuckin’ gander at this. I don’t think it’s quite dry, but—” You decaptchalogue the painting and offer it to him, squirming—a tad nervous, but less so, now he’s already accepted one gift from you. Still, this one is a good deal more personal, your emotions sprawled out across a canvas in his colors. 

He grimaces when his eye catches the bright red, but it softens slightly as his gaze moves across the painting, roams over grays and blacks and whites. “You made this?” he asks, glancing up at you after a moment, and you bite your lip and nod. “It’s—fuck. I’m not gonna pretend I understand it, but it  _ looks  _ fucking cool.”

You grin real big at him, then, your chest warming. Fuck yeah—you made your palemate happy with what skills you have, with what skills even Messiahs praise. It feels fucking  _ good.  _ “Shit, I’m happy you think so, best friend. Made it special for you.”

“What’s it mean?” His eyes are intent, suddenly, on yours. 

“I—” You shuffle closer to him, let your knees knock together. Decide to answer him the truth, as best you can, without hurting him. (Is it still the truth, then? You’re not sure. The truth is becoming a funnier and funnier thing, the more you look at it.) “It means I love you, my diamond. That’s you—” You tap a claw gently in the red, trace it out into the gray of his sign. “Shinin’ out into this motherfucker’s shadows like the brightest light a fucker ever did get his see on of.”

Karkat is quiet for a minute, rubbing his thumb along the side of the canvas, leaning against your shoulder. “It’s beautiful,” he says, his voice real solemn and quiet. When he says shit in that voice, it sounds like holy law. “Thank you.  _ Thank you,  _ fuck.”

You wrap your arm around him and squeeze him close, and he turns his face into your neck and breathes deep. “You’re most motherfucking welcome, my precious motherfucker,” you murmur into his hair, leaning your cheek against his horns. 

“Shit—I got you something too. It’s not as good, but—”

“Hey, I’m sure it’s even better, best friend,” you protest, ears pricking up with excitement. You knew he’d probably got you something, but you are most goddamn impatient to know  _ what.  _ “Can I up and see it?”

You smell his sylladex, and then something drops into his hand. His fist tightens around it, his shoulders rise and fall in a deep breath. He uncurls his fingers and offers it to you. You cup your hands around his and lean forward; it’s a small, rosy-gold circular pendant laced onto a thin chain. “It’s a necklace,” your brother explains—sounds shy, all of a sudden. “Here, look—”

He presses a clawtip to the side of the pendant and it clicks faintly. He sweeps it open with his thumb, and—oh. Inside, there’s a small, glossy picture of the two of you, faces pressed close together. You’re grinnin’ wide and happy at the camera, and the tiniest, crookedest smile even graces Karkat’s face. You’ve both still got your hair—you with your raucous curls and Karkat with his shaggy mop—and you think you vaguely remember takin’ that picture with him near about half a sweep ago, just before you decided to fuck off and leave your planet. You don’t know how he got it printed off so small and pretty, but you sure as fuck are glad he did. On the other side of the locket, there are words engraved in Karkat’s familiar, all-capital Alternian scrawl: FOR LOVE, FUCKER. Above his words nestles a brilliant, glimmering red jewel. 

“You said you wanted a quadrant stone,” Karkat says, his free hand kneading nervously at his pants. “This isn’t—it’s not real, or anything, just some cheap fuckin’ rhinestone, but I thought—until I can get something better, I mean, maybe this would—”

“It’s perfect,” you breathe, running the pad of your thumb softly across the precious inside of the locket. “Motherfucker, it is  _ perfect.  _ Messiahs, Karkat. Thank you.” Oh shit. Oh shit wait you’re starting to get choked up because of how much you love this tiny motherfucker—

“And there’s this, too.” He shoves a wad of pink, glittery paper at you. “It’s—stupid, compared to your badass painting, but—we can’t all be miniature Picassos, I guess.”

The wad of glittery pink turns out to be a card—it’s shaped into a diamond with sprinkles of white glitter lining the borders. In the center, a gray marker has been used to scrawl TO: THE WORLD’S MOST PITIFUL PALEMATE and FROM: KARKAT. When you flip it over, there’s a smaller white diamond inside the first, so the pink forms a little border around its edges. There are three more glitter-borders inside the white diamond (purple, red, and white), all encircling a small paragraph of gray letters. 

GAMZEE,

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, MOTHERFUCKER. I KNOW THIS IS A SHITTY NONSENSICAL HUMAN HOLIDAY, BUT AT LEAST IT HAD THE FORETHOUGHT TO CELEBRATE THE ONLY THING THAT REALLY MATTERS IN THE SHITSTAIN THAT IS LIFE: ROMANCE. AND YOU, GOD HELP ME, ARE THE MOST ROMANTIC FUCKER I KNOW. I LOVE YOU WITH MY WHOLE FUCKING DIAMOND AND I’M SO PALE FOR YOU I MIGHT AS WELL BE A GODDAMN TRANSLUCENT CAVELIZARD. YOU MAKE ME HAPPIER THAN ANY TROLL HAS A RIGHT TO, AND I HOPE YOU KNOW HOW GRATEFUL I AM FOR YOU. I LOVE YOU, DUMBASS. <>

—KARKAT

Yep. Well and truly choked up, thaaaaat’s you. You try and scrub away your tears with the back of your wrist before Karkat sees them, but he catches you in the act and clicks anxiously in concern, taking your hand. “Hey, shit, no—I’m sorry, fuck, I—”

“Don’t you be sorry for this, motherfucker,” you say, laughing a little wetly. Your lungs don’t take too kindly to that, and you gotta cough a little into your elbow. Karkat clicks  _ more  _ anxiously, and you pap his shoulder soothingly. “Shhh, best friend, it’s alright. I ain’t sad—you just got me drownin’ in all this motherfucking  _ pity.” _

His little shoulders relax. Lets out a soft breath, then climbs into your lap and curls up there like the world’s best goddamn comfort plush. “You’re getting sick,” he grumbles at you, rather than acknowledge how red his cheeks are gettin’. Poor little fella does get so embarrassed by romance, despite his love of it. 

And you, rather than acknowledge the fact that maybe you  _ are  _ gettin’ sick, hug him close and kiss his fluffy hair. “Love you, little brother. Love you with my whole fuckin’ self.”

Best friend hums, turning his face up to kiss beneath your chin. Sends a thrill of protective pity washing through you, that—an age-old gesture of his lookin’ up to you as leader, even if it’s just for a moment. “I love you too, you bastard,” he says, butting his horns up against your jaw. “Now come on—let’s eat and then I’m gonna pile the  _ shit  _ out of you.”

So eat you do, quick as you can, ‘cause you got a bone-deep  _ want  _ to pile this pitiful motherfucker. Your food’s gotten cold as you’ve been talkin’, but it’s still hells of fuckin’ good. Watching your best friend fill his belly with what food  _ you  _ made is even better—you can provide for this boy of yours, can keep him safe and warm and fed,  _ fuck yeah  _ you can.

And if that requires your drownin’, then so fucking be it.

Once you’ve eaten, brother gets you sprawled out on your back in the pile and curls up on top of you. He don’t weigh hardly nothin’—still all skin and bones from your voyage across the stars, though you think he  _ is  _ starting to fill out again. His weight is still enough to press down on your chest and stomach, though, enough to make it a fair bit difficult to get a whole lungful of air. You shift him off to the side and curl up around him, instead, press kisses to his hair and horns and he chirrs up at you.

Gets your shirt unbuttoned after a few minutes, he does, and sets to rasping his tongue over your chest, over the rattle of your breath, like he can heal the wounds hidden beneath your skin if he just tries hard enough. You purr at him, let him know he makes you feel a shit-ton better just by his carin’, and he settles heavier against your side. Hooks a leg possessively over your thighs, hands roaming over your sides and stomach, and you are jealous of him—here you are, shirt buttons all undone, and him still fully dressed. 

“Motherfucker mind takin’ this off?” you prompt him, tuggin’ at the edge of his shirt. He sheds it quickly for you, then plasters himself against your side again. You trail your claws across his scalp, scratching softly at the nape of his neck and behind each little ear, until you hear the faintest thread of a purr in his chest. You want more, so much more, but it’s awful hard to get Karkat to give you a real pilin’ purr without touchin’ those cute-ass horns.

Well. That just means a motherfucker’s gotta get  _ creative,  _ doesn’t it?

You roll over him, pin him with your weight alone, the way you know he likes, and his purr hitches up a little. “Look awful good like this, motherfucker,” you tell him, nuzzling beneath his throat. Rasp your tongue across his scent gland, taste the spice of him and listen to him chirp. He wraps his arms around you, trailing his claws gently up and down your back so you shiver. “Should get you all held down for me more often, huh?”

There goes his blush, creepin’ across his cheeks and down his neck. “Fuck you, you filthy perv,” he grouches, but that’s not a  _ no.  _ You grin at him and he slips his hands up, gets them around the roots of your horns and squeezes in retaliation. A successful retaliation it is—has you flopping down limp across him, toes curling and purr swelling with pleasure. “Yeah, that’s right. You’re not such a tough guy once somebody gets their hands on your horns, huh?”

You can’t contradict that, you suppose. You just chirrup at him instead, eyes half-lidded, hands moving to knead between his grubscars. His body shudders and loosens beneath you, goin’ limp just like he would for his lusus, a pleased little chirr rattling in his throat. You lean down and nuzzle your scent across his hair, trickling your claws back and forth, right across those rough little patches of skin what mark his scars, until his legs are twitching helplessly. 

_ Then  _ you pull your trump card. You don’t oft do it—it’s hard to get into the right headspace, most times. It’s hard now, but you want him purring loud for you, damn it. So you settle back, press your hands to his shoulders, and you rumble at him. A shudder rolls through his body as he recognizes the sound, his head tipping back, instinctively showing you his throat even as he cracks an eye open to look surprised at you. You rumble again for him, eyes half-lidded and dark—it’s an old sound, one straight from the primitive part of your pan, from the same place snarls and shooshes come from. But instead of saying  _ fuck off,  _ or  _ calm down,  _ this motherfuckin’ noise says,  _ listen, submit, obey. _

And obey you he does—you kiss Karkat’s chest, a silent command, and he rattles up a perfect purr at you, rusty and loud and happy. His hands knead at the pillows next to you, and you wrap him up with you in the big gray blanket. It is the comfiest burrito you have ever been part of. He twines his legs with yours and rests his ear over your chest, petting a hand soothingly across your side and hip. When he remembers, he asks after the locket you’d tucked safe and snug in your pocket, and you give it to him. He presses a kiss to the front, then slips it over your horns and rests it around your neck. The metal sits warm against your skin.

You eventually fall asleep there, in the pile, and not a single terror haunts your dreams that day—not with him around to protect you from all as might harm.


	21. intermission b

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: blood, violence, lil bit of gore, emotional abuse/manipulation, brief mentions of nsfw, noncon pale (not in the main relationship u.u), injuries
> 
> chapter track: "no devil" by san fermin

Your name is Nuodel Gorroe, and tonight is going to be a _very_ good night. You meet Makara in the training rooms early on, and he looks earnestly at you, chuffs out a greeting that you do not return. He smells pale, smells like the gross little mutant wiggler he’s always hanging on, and you wrinkle your nose as you nuzzle your own scent across him to cover it up. “Tonight,” you tell him, “is a _special-ass_ night, little Makara. You know why?”

“Not a clue why, sister,” he informs you—not a smidgen of shame about his ignorance, either. Fuck, but he's a hopeless little shit. “Care to enlighten a motherfucker?”

“Today’s the day we start your actual subjugation training.” 

“Oh.” He hums thoughtfully, trotting along behind you as you lead him over to mats. “We ain’t already been doin’ that?”

You snort. “Hell no. It’s awful hard to train a twig to be a subjugglator.” You eyeball him, still mighty dissatisfied with how thin and frail he looks. He’s packed on a little weight and muscle in the last three weeks, but it ain’t near enough to intimidate even a squeakbeast. It is enough, though, to keep him from breakin’ to pieces if you lay a hand on him. “Now that you’re—a little more like a branch, anyway, maybe we can do something. Gonna teach you how to fight, first, and once you ain’t shit at that I’ll teach you how to do some real inquisition. How’s that sound?”

“Whatever you think is best sounds bitchin’ to me, sister,” he says. Fucking suck-up. Seems to think if he licks your boots hard enough you won’t toss him in the pool anymore. And, well—you _are_ gonna throw him a little bit of incentive, here in a bit. “Gotta tell you, though, I’m—not the best a fighter as there ever was.”

“I know,” you say, voice real dry. “Figured as much. Anybody packs as much sopor as you do in their pan ain’t got room for fightin’ anything. And that’s another thing—” You turn, narrow your eyes at him and watch him shrink back some. “Enough of that sopor, Makara.”

He hesitates, all incomprehension and slow stupidity. “...enough, sister?”

“I don’t want you eating anymore of that shit from now on. Half of fighting as a subjugglator is using your ‘voodoos, and I’d wager to bet you can’t even _reach_ yours through all that slime. Shit’s motherfucking disgusting—and a dishonor to Messiahs, to boot. What you think they gave you those powers for, huh? To stomp ‘em down to nothing, shove ‘em in the farthest corner of your pan and ignore ‘em for your whole damned life? Shameful.”

He crumples into himself—always does, at the thought of disappointing your Messiahs—and tugs on the hem of his shirt. “I—shit, no, sister. I didn’t get my think on of that, I—”

“Go fucking figure.” You scoff and sit down, moving through a few stretches. He settles across from you and follows suit. 

“I just—I ain’t so good at _controlling_ them, you know,” he says, ears flicked down all guilty, like what he’s sayin’ is sin. Probably it is. “Those ‘voodoos. And shit gets—gets real weird, without the slime. _Real_ weird.”

“That’s because you don’t know what the world is like without it,” you say scathingly. “Because you’re a goddamned coward who’s hidden from it since you were hatched. Thought you could just stay soft and stupid your whole life, didn’t you? Thought if you ate enough of that shit you could turn your back on your hatchright and Messiahs both, thought—”

“No,” Makara blurts, his eyes widening. “No, I never meant to turn back on Messiahs, sister, fuck no—ain’t what I meant by it, not at all.”

“Ah. So you’re just a coward, then?”

He hunches his shoulders until you kick him for ruinin’ his stretching posture. “Guess that’s near about a right description of this motherfucker,” he admits softly. 

“Well, at least you know it.” You sigh all heavy, roll your neck until it pops and then stand up to stretch out your legs. “It’s an awful hard thing, teachin’ a coward and an addict, Makara. You oughta be grateful I’m wasting my time on you.”

“Most grateful, sister,” he murmurs, pushing himself up after you.

“And what’s more, I’m gonna make you a deal.” He glances up at you, ears flicking. “I know comin’ off the slime’s gonna be some hard shit for you, so I’m gonna make it easier on a brother. You’ll come stay with me as long as you’re off it. I’ll help you keep your ‘voodoos in check, help keep you from hurtin’ anybody. Then—”

“But—but Karkat,” he protests immediately, just like you knew he would. “My moirail, that’s his job, he—”

“That’s _his_ job?” You laugh, bitter and dark. “Oh, and what a fine-ass job he’s done of it, clearly. That’s why you’re on the sopor in the first place, huh?”

“No, that’s not—he—I never gave him a motherfuckin’ chance—”

“Because you knew what would happen.” You hook a claw under his chin, force him to meet your eyes. “You know what _will_ happen, if you’re around him without the sopor, little motherfucker. You’re a highblood, and that is something holy and righteous, that is a fucking _gift,_ but if you do not handle it with care it will ruin you. It will ruin _him._ You’re a monster, Makara, as Messiahs saw fit to make you.”

“No, I—I—”

“You are. You know it as well as I do. That’s why you take precautions, right? That’s why you’re on the sopor. To keep from hurtin’ anybody, to keep from hurtin’ him or any of your clade. Tell me, Makara—look me in the eye and tell me you ain’t never thought about hurting him when you’re off sopor. Tell me you ain’t thought about rending him open, stringing his guts up and painting a motherfucking masterpiece with all that burning blood.”

His mouths opens, shuts. He does not look you in the eye. “He could stop me,” he whispers, staring at his sneakers. There’s a little gray diamond traced on the toe of one. “Karkat could. He could, I know he could—”

“If you know, then why ain’t you let him try, huh?” You hook your claw, split the skin skin under his chin in a tiny scratch and examine the glistening purple blood balanced on your fingertip. He winces, hunches his shoulders. “Yeah. You don’t know, motherfucker. Might be that you think he could, and maybe he can. But that’s not a risk you should be willing to take. What kind of a moirail would that make you? Puttin’ your palemate in danger just so he can prove himself. And if he doesn't?”

Makara shudders, hugging his arms close to his chest. 

“If he _doesn’t,_ Makara? What happens then? Tell it at me. _Now.”_

“He dies,” Makara says, and it’s a broken gasp, like speaking blasphemy. His claws dig into his sides. “He dies, I kill him, he dies, _fuck—”_

“Exactly. If you ain’t got a hold on yourself, and if _he_ ain’t got a hold of yourself, he dies and your life ain’t worth livin’. Is that a risk you want to take?”

“No, motherfucker, absolutely it is _not—”_

“Good. Then we’re on the same page. As long as you’re off the slime, you stay with me and nobody gets hurt. Now, I know you pity your palemate somethin’ fierce, so I won’t keep you from him too long. A couple weeks at most, and then you can go back on your slime and return to him for another couple. We’ll trade off. And if you’re calm enough off the slime, he can visit. That sound fair?”

Makara hesitates, and you can see his jaw clenchin’ and relaxin’ in turn. Let him think. Let him stew in his own helplessness a minute. And then, like you knew he would, he says, “Yeah, sister. That’s fair as fair can be, I guess.”

“Atta boy.” You pat him between the horns, enjoy the way he flinches under your touch. “And hey, chin up—I’m even gonna let you stay outta the pool when you’re off the slime.”

He glances up at you, eyes wide and hopeful, ears all pricked forward. “Wait—for serious?”

“Fuck yeah. Ain’t no sense in wearin’ you out anymore than you’re already gonna be worn out. Besides—” You tap a claw on his chest. “Your lungs are all waterlogged to hell. If we keep goin’, you’ll get sicker. Gotta give you a couple weeks to recover before we start again. I already have some antibiotics for you, before it turns into a nasty-ass infection.”

_“Thank_ you, sister,” he says fervently, his eyes feverishly bright. “Fuck, thank you.”

You wave him off, heading for the treadmills. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Hop up here. Run a couple miles—you can go back to your palemate after trainin’ and tell him what we decided, but I expect you in my block come morning.”

“Alright. I might—have a hard time convincin’ Karkat, though,” he says hesitantly, starting the treadmill and picking up a steady pace. “He won’t like it none.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you tell him, stepping onto your own machine and falling into pace beside him. “I already sent Noir to do some convincin’ of his own. You shouldn’t have a single thing to worry about.”

* * *

Your name is John Egbert and you have the best friends, seriously. It’s Friday night and Terezi had insisted that since you all totally _conquered_ your algebra test today, you should celebrate. You didn’t have any qualms, and neither did Rose, so the three of you find yourselves curled up on your couch binging _The Office._ Your dad, being the awesome human being that he is, has supplied you all with copious popcorn, soda, and a plate of bacon because he’s clearly under the misconception that trolls are strict carnivores. 

Of course, you can’t _blame_ him for the misconception. Have you _seen_ Terezi’s teeth? Or Gamzee’s? Or—well, any troll’s, really. It’s like their race was just like, ‘hey, you know what would be cool? Growing daggers. Growing daggers in our _mouths’_ and then they did. Actually, you think Karkat is the only troll you’ve seen with semi-rounded teeth, and even then he’s still got _way_ too many of them. What’s more, if Terezi is to be believed, they _keep growing them._ When one set gets too small or too dull or broken, they just shed them all and regrow them.

Trolls, man.

“Hey, kiddos.” Your dad sticks his head into the living room, knocking his knuckles on the door. You and Rose glance over at him, but Terezi just flicks an ear back in his direction. “I’m gonna run to the store before it closes. Do you all need anything?”

“Justice for Michael Scott,” Terezi declares, cramming a fistful of bacon into her mouth and chewing noisily.

“No thank you, Mr. Egbert,” Rose says. 

“I think we’re good—thanks, though.” You wave at your dad as he leaves, then settle back between Terezi and Rose. Terezi snuggles up to your side, leeching off of your warmth like the ice-blooded reptile/insect/spawn of Godzilla she is, while Rose leans her head against your shoulder. It’s nice, being here with them. It’s so nice. The only thing that could make it better would be having _all_ of your friends here—the most massive, epic snugglefest in the _world._

Unfortunately, Dave calls the sweaty armpit that is Texas his home, Jade lives on an island in the middle of Nowhere, and Karkat and Gamzee are on the complete opposite side of the nation and also cryptically unwilling to talk about visiting you anytime soon. You win some, you lose some, you guess. At least you have Rose and Terezi nearby for your daily dose of snuggles and friendship and also pranking. 

By the time you finish the fifth season of _The Office,_ it’s late into the night and your eyes sting with weariness. Terezi doesn’t seem affected at all—although you guess she _is_ biologically nocturnal, even if she’s adapted to a diurnal schedule since starting school—but Rose is asleep and drooling on your shoulder. You smooth her hair back and she blinks her eyes open, humming sleepily at you. “Hello, John.”

“Hey there. Want me to get my dad to drive you back home so you can sleep?”

“Sleep?” Terezi demands, licking bacon grease off of her fingers. “Nonsense. I bet we can get through season six, at least. Why?” She leans towards Rose, sniffing the air. “Are you tired?”

“Mm-hm.” Rose reaches up and pats between Terezi’s horns. “It’s the melatonin.”

“Well tell it to mela- _tone it_ down,” Terezi says, then throws her head back and cackles at her own wit. “We’ve still got four seasons to get through.”

“I’ve got _all_ the melatonin too,” you inform Terezi regretfully, rubbing your eyes. “It’s is just—flooding my veins. All of my blood has been replaced with melatonin. All of it.”

Terezi ducks down and licks the inside of your wrist with her scratchy tongue, leaving a cold and rapidly-drying trail of saliva in her wake. “Hmm. After a thorough investigation by the court, it appears that either a) melatonin tastes exactly the same as your blood or b) you’re a filthy rotten _liar.”_

“I plead the fifth.”

“Objection,” Terezi says, nipping at your fingers until you giggle and push her away. 

“What,” you whine. “You can’t object to the fifth. That’s, like, a constitutional right.”

“Your mom is a constitutional right.”

You laugh, rolling off of the couch and wrapping your blanket around your shoulders. “Maybe. Who the hell knows?”

Rose follows you up, leaning against you until you wrap her up in your blanket burrito. You open one side to let Terezi squirm in next, then fold it back up around the three of you. Rose yawns against your neck, snuffling sleepily, and you pat her hair. “Well, I suppose if you’ve both been replaced with melatonin, I ought to find someone else to hassle until tomorrow,” Terezi says, frowning. 

“I’m sure Dave is awake,” you tell her, guiding your burrito towards your dad’s room. “You can troll him.”

Terezi brightens a little at that suggestion. You knock quietly on your dad’s door and it swings open a few minutes later—he’s still dressed. He was probably waiting for the three of you to crash and summon him to be your chauffeur. God, but you can’t wait until you’re old enough to drive. “Hey,” you say, smiling sheepishly at him. “Can we catch a ride?”

“Of course you can.” He ruffles your hair and leads the three of you out to the car. You clamber into the back, determined not to detach from your burrito until absolutely necessary. “How was your night?”

“It was good,” you say, yawning wide enough to crack your jaw.

“We got all the way through season five,” Terezi informs him. 

“Mm-hm,” Rose says, which isn’t technically an answer, but has your dad smiling and nodding anyway. He drops Rose off at her house, first, and you reluctantly disentangle her from the burrito and walk with her to the door. She fumbles with her keys for a minute, then gets the door open and pats your shoulder. “G’night, John.”

“Good night, Rose. Sleep well,” you say, waving as cheerfully as your sleepy self can before shuffling back to the car. Terezi leans heavily against you, and you see her eyes starting to lid behind her glasses. You drop her off at the group home next, padding with her to the big front door. She presses the doorbell, and a few seconds later you hear the door unlocking. One of the staff members opens it—Markus, you think. 

“Hey there, Terezi. Welcome back,” Markus says, stepping back so Terezi can slip inside. “And hey there, John. Thanks for bringing her home.”

“No problem,” you say, smiling at him and waving to Terezi, though you realize a few seconds later that’s silly, since she can’t see you. You drop your hand back to your side. “See you, Terezi. Have a good night.”

Once they’ve both vanished inside, you trot back to your car, slipping out of the gated yard and climbing into the passenger’s seat. The ride back home is a short one, and you stumble up the stairs to your own home after your dad. You are _so_ ready for bed. But something feels—different, you think. The breeze feels colder. The breath in your lungs feels thicker.

“Night, Dad,” you say, and he ruffles your hair affectionately as you head for the stairs.

“Goodnight, my boy. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Maybe we can go out for breakfast, hm?” he says. You hum in sleepy agreement, and collapse into your bed as soon as you reach it. You curl up under the blankets to ward off the cold, blowing warm air across your fingers. You’re fine. Everything is fine. Everyone you love is fine. 

...aren’t they?

* * *

Your name is Sollux Captor, and the world is your _fucking oyster, baby._ You just had the _best_ (well, and first) Valentine’s Day _ever._ You got to see AA, and give her your card, and your flowers, and she cooed at you, and there were kisses, there were lots and lots of kisses and it was all Very Good. Then you came home and you slept like four hours but now you’re wide awake and ready to _go._ You jog downstairs and cram some toast down your throat, then rush upstairs to see your friends. Maybe if you hurry, you’ll be able to see GZ before he leaves for training. 

Unfortunately, you must not hurry fast enough, because when KK opens the door there’s no gangly pile of bones stumbling around in the block behind him. He blinks owlishly at you, rubbing his eyes with one little fist. “Fuck?” he greets you, his voice rough with sleep. 

“No thanks,” you say cheerfully, then pause to think about it. Hm. “What’s your bulge look like, anyway? Is it like—also mutated?”

He squints at you. “It is—way too early for this, Captor.”

He drifts back into his block without shutting the door, which you consider an invitation. You slip inside after him, kicking the door shut. Your eyes immediately land on the pile because _hey_ that’s new. “Woah, pile—when’d you scrape that together?”

“Yesterday,” he says, flopping into aforementioned pile and burying himself amidst the pillows until only his butt and the tips of his horns poke out. There’s a small, heart-shaped box of dark chocolate near the edge of the pile, with a red envelope on top. You reach for it, and he doesn’t snap at you, so you scoop it up and open it.

“Who’s this from?” you ask. 

“Fuck if I know. It’s not signed. Somebody left it outside the door—Gamzee found it this morning.” The pile shuffles as he stretches. “Probably some freak-ass voyeur.”

You gently pluck the card out of the envelope, then arch your eyebrows because _are you kidding._ There’s no way he _doesn’t_ know who this is from. There’s a gray cat face pictured on the front, surrounded by several floating pink hearts and the printed red words ‘I’m smitten, kitten.’ When you flip it open, there are two cats—orange and gray—curled up together with the words ‘:33 < be my mine, meowentine’ scrawled in scratchy green handwriting. “Are you serious? Are you kidding me right now? You _don’t_ know who this is from?”

The pile growls faintly but otherwise does not respond to you.

_“Fuck,_ you’re an idiot, KK. You can’t just pretend you don’t know.” You wave the card in the pile’s direction. “You can’t just ignore this and hope it goes away. It _won’t._ Trust me, Nepeta’s nothing if not stubborn.”

“It’s weird,” the pile mumbles. “She’s weird.”

“So _tell_ her that. Nicely. If you’re not interested, she needs to know. You can’t just string her along. Equius would break you like a tiny toothpick if you tried.”

“Don’t tell me how to manage my quadrants, Captor.” The pile shifts just enough for Karkat to glare at you between two fluffy pillows. His face is bright red. “Besides, I never said I _wasn’t_ interested, but I don’t _know_ her, and she doesn’t know me. I don’t see how she can have a crush on someone she met a few weeks ago.”

You shrug. “Fuck if I know how romance works. You’re supposed to be the casanova, here. Do you _think_ you would like her, if you got to know her?”

“I don’t know. She’s kind of annoying.” He shuts his eyes, curls up tighter in his pile. “Nice, I guess. But annoying. And her palemate—eugh.” He shudders. “I can’t imagine being corners with _that_ gross bastard. Besides, even if I _did_ like her, I can’t do anything about it. I’m a freak—and yes, that includes my weird mutant bulge, you pervert—and I’d rather not let anyone else know about it. So. There’s no point in acknowledging something that can’t even exist. Ergo, I don’t know who the card is from. Now—why are you here? Other than to shit all over my evening, I mean.”

“I missed you,” you say, deciding to let his romantic angst-fest rest for the moment, and it’s not a lie. You did. You missed him. You’re starting to think you like having friends around to pester, to wheedle for attention, and you _do_ want his attention. You flop down on your belly and inch towards the pile, until you can see his face. He cracks one gray eye open to glare halfheartedly at you again. “What? Am I not allowed to miss my friends?”

“No,” he mumbles, wrapping himself up around a big red crab. “Fuck off with your emotions. I can’t handle them until after midnight. You’re gonna have to—” His jaw splits in a wide yawn. “—put in a reservation.”

“I’ll take it into consideration.”

“Mm, good. I charge extra to put up with your idiosyncrasies. Oh and also because I’m still mad at you.”

“Are you? I couldn’t tell.” 

“Do forgive me. I’ll try to make it more obvious next time, you sarcastic piece of shit,” he says, unburying one hand so he can flip you off. 

“You smell pale.” You lean forward, snuffling at his hair. He doesn’t just _smell_ pale—he reeks of it, warm and soft. He smells like GZ, too. The clown has a—weird scent. You expect a guy like him to smell like cotton candy and rainbows or something, but he smells like old things. Powerful things. Stone after a storm, trampled leaves, the must of unopened doors. KK headbutts your sniffer rather unenthusiastically, so you shift back for just a moment before leaning in again, piecing out the story of him in the scents clinging to his skin.

“You smell like a hospital,” he says, looking lazily at you. “D’you see your palemate?”

“Mm-hm. It was really nice. She’s nice. You should meet her sometime.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You shift forward on instinct, momentarily overwhelmed by how much you like this little crabby asshole, and nuzzle your jaw across his hair. He sighs softly but doesn’t shift away, and he doesn’t sound altogether displeased, either. 

It’s the first time you’ve marked him, you realized—marked him as your friend, as a troll who you _want,_ as part of your clade. It leaves a warm, bone-deep sense of contentment buzzing in your chest. Clade. You have a clade. You had Nepeta and Equius and AA, before, but now you have KK and GZ _too,_ and it’s wonderful. Clades are wonderful. Friends are wonderful. You’ve never been a particularly social troll, but fuck if it doesn’t feel nice to belong somewhere—to someone. KK doesn’t mark you back, but that’s okay. That’s okay, you can wait. You did royally fuck him over, and you know he _is_ still mad at you, though he’s quieter about it now.

“How long were you planning on being mad?” you ask him, kicking your feet over your back and crossing your arms in front of you so you can rest your chin on them. “Anything I can do to speed the process?”

“Nuh-uh.” He yawns again, showing you all his nubby, crooked teeth and the dark gray insides of his mouth. “Gonna be mad for at least a century.”

“Were you planning on living that long?”

“Fuck knows.”

“That’s okay. I can still hear you, even if you’re dead.”

He arches an eyebrow at you. “I thought that was your palemate’s thing.”

“Well, she does it better than me,” you admit. “She can talk to ghosts and see them and shit. I just—hear them. Sometimes.” Especially when you’re in this mood, goddamn. It’s like a faint murmur in the back of your head, cold breath against the back of your neck. If you try, you can make out the words. You prefer not to try. “They tell me things.”

“What things?” He’s starting to look vaguely concerned now, his brows drawing together. 

“Things like—like—” You squint, like you’re thinking really hard. (You’re not.) “Like ‘Karkat Vantas is a giant lazy asshole who needs to get out of his pile because his friend totally brought video games to play with him.’ See check this out—” You whip out your Nintendo Switch (you’d saved up for _that_ bad boy for _perigees,_ with what little of your free money didn’t go to AA) and wave it in his face. “Come ooooon. Up up up.”

KK groans, burying his head underneath a pillow. “Oh my god, you’re an ass.”

“And a fine piece of it, too,” you agree. You wheedle at him until he finally drags himself out of the pile and consents to sit next to you, back braced against his ‘coon, as you teach him how to play Mario Kart. This has the predictable effect of turning him into a violently screaming rage-monster as he comes in last pace a total of thirteen times and oh shit, would you look at that, his eyes are actually turning orange. You laugh your head off—it’s funny how fucking _worked up_ he gets over every little thing—as he spits and hisses and selects another track to try again. 

Asshole’s got dedication, you gotta give him that.

He’s _almost_ won sixth place when there’s a knock at his door, and the both of you jerk your heads around to stare at it. You breathe the air in and smell cigar smoke, thick human cologne. Noir. Your lip wrinkles, and you carefully take the Switch from KK and slide it back into your pocket. You pad towards his door, and he doesn’t protest, so you swing it open for him. “‘sup, Noir?” 

Noir looks flatly at you, clearly unimpressed with your _epic_ suaveness. “Captor,” he says, his voice stiff. “I’m here to see Vantas. Though I _will_ need to have a conversation with you later tonight.”

“Oooh, exciting.” You hear KK moving to stand behind you, so you lean against the doorframe to give him room to address Noir. “I gotta say, I look forward to it. Conversations with you always brighten up my night.”

Noir sighs heavily. “Get out. Go find one of the officers—they’ll have a job for you. Vantas, you’re coming with me.”

You part reluctantly from KK, watching him follow Noir down the hall with his shoulders hunched. The voices in the back of your skull swell and crest as he vanishes from your sight, a wave of crushing noise that lasts only a split second. You can’t make out any sensical words, but you don’t need to. They leave you with a feeling that doesn’t need translation: decay. 

You think about stones after a storm. You think about rotting leaves.

* * *

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and going anywhere with Jack Noir gives you the creeps. Going to the basement, where the air smells like blood and decay, gives you creeps on top of your creeps. But you made a deal, and you can hardly disobey him when he’s the reason you have a roof over your head and food in your stomach. 

“I need to discuss some important things with you, Vantas,” he says, and that makes you feel not at all better, shit. Have you done something wrong? Did something happen to Gamzee? Shit shit shit—“And I need you to discuss them like an adult. Can you do that?”

 “Yeah, of course. What is it?”

“It’s about your moirail.”

Whelp. You’re fucked. “Shit. Is he okay, is he—”

“He’s fine,” Noir assures you, taking a seat on one of the benches outside of the—ugh—inquisition rooms. He pats the space next to him, and you tentatively sit. “He’s progressing well in his training—or so Nuodel tells me, anyhow. She thinks he’s ready to move into actual subjugation training, which is what I need to talk to you about.”

“Okay. And how is that—different from what he’s already been doing?”

“He’ll be learning to fight the way adult subjugglators do, if what Nuodel tells me is correct.”

“Oh. That’s—good.” And it is, isn’t it? Your helpless palemate will be able to defend himself. You won’t have to be so terrified for the both of you all the time. You should be glad. (You’re not.) “So what do you need me for?”

“Well, I suppose we shouldn’t mince words.” Noir leans back against the wall, sighing. “While he’s training with Nuodel, he needs to be off of the sopor.”

You—yeah. You knew this was going to come up eventually, so you don’t know why your stomach does a sickeningly surprised little lurch when he says it. And you’re—you’re ready. You are. You hate the sopor, you goddamn _loathe_ it, and it’s time for you to stop being a coward and _be a fucking palemate_ for once. You take a deep breath, nodding. “Okay. Yeah, okay. I’ll need to talk to Gamzee about it, but—”

“Nuodel will speak with him,” Noir says. “Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll be amenable to it. But you know as well as I do that it’s going to be a dangerous transition, don’t you?”

You nod, a little shiver of fear going down your spine. You squash it as ruthlessly as you can. Gamzee is your _moirail._ He’s not going to hurt you. He _wouldn’t._ (Right?  _Right?)_ “Yeah.” You lift your chin and square your shoulders. “But I can handle it. We’ll just need to go slow and be careful. I’ll take care of him. You don’t have to worry—”

“No, Vantas. You misunderstand. Gamzee is—more dangerous than you imagine.”

You glance over at him, baffled. You...know he is? He’s a highblood, for god’s sake. You think this is probably one of those cultural misunderstandings that drive you fucking shithive. “No, no, I know he is. He’s a highblood. His caste literally revolves around torture and slaughter. He wouldn’t be as valuable to you if he wasn’t dangerous, but he’s not some infallible, all-consuming destructive force. He’s _Gamzee._ I can handle him.”

“I have no doubt that you could handle him under normal circumstances. You’re a very brave troll, and it’s clear that he pities you very much,” Noir says, his voice suspiciously sympathetic. “But he is a highblood with a very severe addiction and an unideal past. We have no way of predicting his reaction to withdrawal. So we have decided that the best course of action, in order to keep everyone involved as safe as possible, is to allow Gamzee to stay with Nuodel while he’s off of sopor.”

You pause a minute, blinking, because he’s—joking, right? Or you’ve—you’ve mistranslated something. “I—what?”

“Gamzee will stay with Nuodel for two weeks. The first few days will be allotted for him to cope with withdrawal symptoms. The rest of the time will be spent training. Once those two weeks are up, he’ll be allowed to return to sopor, and to you and your friends. Of course, you won’t be forbidden from seeing him for the two weeks he’s with Nuodel. Should you wish to visit him, you have only to inform her, and she’ll send someone to fetch you when he’s calm.”

“I—you want—to take my moirail away?” you ask, your voice hollow and flat. You’re not—quite sure what you’re feeling. “You want to take my moirail away while he’s suffering. You want to let someone else take care of him.”

“It’s not pale,” Noir adds. “Nuodel wouldn’t be pale with him at all. She’d only see to it that he didn’t hurt himself or someone else.”

“You realize that’s—that’s like half of what pale is.”

“Of course—but she wouldn’t be shooshing or papping him, don’t worry. She’s assured me she feels nothing romantic in the slightest for him. A wiggler doesn’t hold much appeal for her. Besides, it’s only until he’s learned to control himself while he’s off of the sopor.”

“No.”

Noir pauses beside you, tilting his head. “No?”

“No,” you repeat softly. “He’s my moirail. I’ll take care of him.”

“It’s not safe.”

“I know. That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“If he kills you—”

“He won’t.”

“But if he _does,_ you realize it will be up to us to control him. And once he realizes what he’s done, he’ll become inconsolable. Unmanageable. Do you know how useful an unmanageable subjugglator is to me, Vantas?”

You grind your teeth until they ache.

“We will kill him, you know. If he can’t be controlled, he’s a threat, and threats do not survive here. Is _that_ a risk you’re willing to take?”

You curl your hands into fists. Your claws sting your palms. Gamzee. Your Gamzee. You can control him, can’t you? ... _can’t you?_

And is that something you’re willing to bet his life on?

“But, in all fairness,” Noir continues, spreading his hands peacefully, “I know it’s a difficult decision. He _is_ your moirail. I may not understand the intricacies of troll romance, but I know that he’s important to you, and that you want to be responsible for him. I can’t begrudge you the chance. Let’s make a deal that’ll benefit us both, hm?”

You hesitate, chewing the inside of your cheek. But at this point, you’ve got fuck-all to loose, right? You can abandon your moirail and secure his life or tie him to yourself (selfish selfish _selfish)_ and risk both your lives. “...what kind of a deal?”

“Let’s find out if you can do it.” Noir stands up, spreading his arms with a flourish. “Let’s find out if you can calm a subjugglator down. If you can settle an adult, I’m sure you can handle Gamzee, once he’s through his withdrawals. Now—I have this little problem I need you to help me with.” He pounds a fist on one of the inquisition room doors and you hear a low, rattling snarl echo behind it, even through the thick soundproofing mats. “Her name’s Finrel.”

You kinda—stare at him a minute, because he can’t be saying what you think he’s saying, right? “You want me to do _fucking what?”_

“I want you to calm Finrel down for me. She’s been a little bit—agitated, since last night, but I’d hate to kill her if I don’t have to. Purpleblood adults are hard to come by, you know. So if you can calm her down, I’ll move Gamzee back to your room as soon as he’s done with the brunt of his withdrawals. Of course, you’ll have to empty your ‘coons of sopor—I don’t think he has that much self-control, do you?”

“You—I—you want me to go in there.” You point at the door, which is still snarling violently. “With that. Are you _shithive fucking maggots?”_

“If you think you can control Gamzee, you should be able to control Finrel, too.”

“No, see, the big giant major _huge_ difference you’re overlooking here is that _that,”_ you say, gesturing a tad hysterically at the door, “is not my moirail.”

“Yes, well, she’s also not an addict with a distinct lack of control over her debilitating psychic abilities. The challenge level is the same, regardless. Come on.” He sets a hand on your shoulder and you shudder, your lips pulling back from your teeth in disgust—at him, at this whole situation, at _everything._ “Let’s just try. I really don’t want to lose Finrel, and you want to know whether or not you can actually control a subjugglator. It’s a win-win situation.”

You swallow hard, breath hitching in your chest. You are so scared of the thing behind that door it makes you _sick._ But what if it did help? If you can control her, you can control Gamzee, that’s right. Actually, compared to this unfamiliar adult, Gamzee should be _easy._ You could be sure you were strong enough, you could be sure you wouldn’t be putting him in danger.

“What about her moirail?” you ask. “Finrel’s moirail? Why didn’t they—”

“She killed them.”

“Ah.” You are—screaming inside, yep. You are so dead if you go in there. You are so— _dead._ “I don’t—I don’t think I—”

“See, it’s that kind of attitude that’s kept Gamzee on sopor so long. You need more _confidence,_ Vantas. This will help you. This will help _Gamzee._ Don’t you want that? Don’t you love him?”

“Fuck you, of course I do,” you snap, yanking away from his touch. “Don’t you dare question—”

“Then this should be an easy choice for you. Don’t you want to _try?”_

You do. You want so _badly_ to try and be the moirail Gamzee needs, but not like this. This isn’t _right._ You shouldn’t try calming whatever monster lurks in that room because a) it’s a betrayal of your own palemate’s trust and b) you think you may literally actually die if you try. _“Obviously_ I want to try—” you start, exasperated. “But I—”

“Good!” Noir says cheerfully, reaching forward and flicking the lock on the door open. A second later his hand returns to your shoulder, tight and unyielding, and you have just enough time to feel a momentary flare of panic before he’s shoving you forward and into that awful, terrible, snarling room. “Then try away, little Vantas.”

He slams the door behind you and _oh shit oh fuck oh shit—_

There’s an adult crouched in the far corner, lips peeled back from her teeth and her eyes blazing red—not orange, not even dark orange, but _red._ Pure, violent, unthinking red. Her ears are pinned flat against her head, her hair a wild tangle behind her. Bronze blood and purple blood streak her clothes and claws in equal measure. There are deep gashes along her arms and face, and in the corner there’s a—there’s a—

There’s a dead troll. In the corner, there’s a dead troll.

You get the feeling there are about to be two, if you don’t do something soon. But the thing is, you’ve never— _done_ this before. You’ve never soothed _anyone_ down from a rage, let alone an adult highblood. Gamzee never—he didn’t—you’ve never even _seen_ one of his rages. You’ve glimpsed it, over Trollian, in the few times he went without sopor for too long, but you’ve never been present for one.

And holy _fuck,_ looking this monster in the eye, you don’t think you ever want to be.

The adult unfolds herself, rising to her full height, which is _way too fucking big._ She rolls her jaw back to show you every single goddamned fang, her claws curving at her sides. That’s all the warning you get before she lunges and you are so fucking dead, shitshitshit—

You spring to the side and hear her claws shriek against the concrete behind you. You don’t stop moving (can’t stop can’t can’t can’t or you’re _dead)_ and throw yourself away from her, your shoes skidding across the slick pools of blood on the floor. Your shirt flutters as her fingers brush the back of it and you dart off to the side again, but this room is too _small,_ it’s too small and you’re too _weak_ and she’s too _big—_

The second you reach for your strife specibus is the second she slams you against the wall, crushes all of the air out of you with her weight. Her breath is cold and terrible against the back of your neck and you quail—drop your ears, cover your teeth with your lips and whimper at her like you can dig some modicum of pity from her ruthless heart. And she—pauses. 

For a moment, you feel a flare of hope. Maybe you can—maybe you can actually do this. You are going to _kill_ Noir, but maybe he was right. If you can just—just pretend this is Gamzee—

And so you do. You imagine it’s Gamzee’s weight against your back, all bone instead of the adult’s heavy muscle. You imagine it’s his scent surrounding you, dark and soothing, instead of her bitter stink. When you speak, it’s him you comfort. “It’s okay—it’s okay, we’re okay, _shhh,_ we’re safe. Nothing’s going to hurt us here, shh, _shhh.”_

The adult’s grip on you loosens, her snarl fading back to a low growl. Your heart thunders in your chest, your hands trembling. No. Not the adult. Don’t think about the adult, don’t do it, think of Gamzee, _Gamzee—_

“Yeah, that’s it, that’s right. You can relax. You don’t have to be scared, you don’t have to be angry. We’re okay. We’re both going to be okay.” You struggle to reach to the back of your pan, to dig out an actual, genuine shoosh, but you choke on it. You fumble with words, instead, as best you can. “Shoosh—shoosh, shh, it’s alright. You don’t need to hurt anyone.”

She licks her teeth, and you think her eyes are lightening some. You just need to get yours hands on her—shooshes are great, but they aren’t complete with paps. You move your hand slowly, so she can watch it and be sure it’s not a threat; you reach behind your shoulder and brush your fingers softly along her jaw. 

That’s when she digs her claws into your back and _tears._

* * *

Your name is Gamzee Makara, and even from two floors away, you hear your palemate scream. There is not a force in this universe or any other that could stop you from going to him; you would slaughter the first troll who tried. You shove Nuodel out of your way, snarl at the brothers and sisters who step in front of you, and you _run._


	22. his kill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: blood, violence, death, injury
> 
> chapter track: "where's my love?" by syml

You’re in the basement within a minute, your chest heaving and a unconscious snarl rolling in your chest. Noir is the first person you see, and he makes the  _ motherfuckin’ wise-ass decision  _ to move out of your way, putting his hands up nonthreatening. You scent your littlest brother immediately—scent him by his  _ blood,  _ and that ratchets your panic up another notch. There’s more blood-scent, too—more than there usually is in the basement, fresh. Real motherfuckin’ fresh.

You yank on the handle of the door what blocks him from you and it jolts but don’t move. Your snarl feels fit to tear your throat open if it gets any louder. There’s a jingle, and then a ring of silver keys lands at your feet. 

“The one with 102 written on it,” Noir says, his voice quiet, back pressed against the far wall. You snatch the keys and unlock the door as quickly as your can, tearing it open and plunging inside. The stench of blood rolls over you like a wave, and your pupils swell to draw in the dim light here. There are two dead trolls in this room, and you thank your fucking Messiahs Karkat ain’t one of ‘em. 

No, your Karkat is alive, though he looks fucked up something fierce. There’s his blood streaked over the floor, his and no other’s, gaudy crimson that makes bile rise in your throat. He’s curled up in the corner, breathing in wheezy little gasps. His eyes are glassy and bright orange—not a spark of recognition in them when they land on you. A low, rattling growl starts in his chest. There’s deep purple blood on his claws. 

“Karkat,” you breathe. “Oh, Karkat, best friend,  _ what the fuck—” _

You move towards him, nice and slow, though you got a fierce fucking need in you to see his hurts. You gotta stop that bleedin’—ain’t right that any troll should lose so much blood, let alone one as tiny as he is. His growl hitches up in volume the closer you get, but you ignore it. Know him well enough now to know when he’s fixing to strike, and right this second he ain’t. He’s just bluffin’ at you, and you can’t say as you blame him. Motherfucker must be terrified.

You are going to  _ kill  _ whoever did this to him. (Judging by the big sister sprawled out on the floor and the blood on his claws, though, you think he probably got to it first.)

“Shhh,” you say, keeping your voice soft and steady as you can when you’re  _ fucking terrified  _ because your best fucking friend is  _ bleedin’ out in front of you.  _ You crouch in front of him, raise your hands, show at him they’re nonthreatening. “Shh, little brother, little Karkat,  _ shhh.  _ It’s alright. Ain’t not a thing here to harm you, love. Not a thing gonna harm either one of us. Settle down now, shh-shh-shh. I need to take a look at you.”

Karkat licks his teeth anxiously, bares them at you on instinct. His breathing’s quieted some, his ears flicking back and forth, as though there’s a threat on all sides. He’s started to keep one angled in your direction, though. Listening, you think, or trying to. You inch a little closer to him, offer him one hand. 

“I know you’re scared, best friend,” you tell him. “I know. Some bad shit went down, huh? But’s over now. I’m not gonna let a single thing else near you. I’ve got you, little brother. I’ve got you, trust me, shhh, I’ve got you.” You croon softly, low and soothing, and get both of his ears to focus on you for a moment. “Yeah, there you go. I’m right here. Karkat.  _ Karkat.  _ I’m here. Pay attention to me now, beloved.”

He leans in your direction ever-so-slightly, his nostrils flaring as he scents you from a distance. You probably smell like Nuodel (wrinkle your nose at the thought) but you hope you smell enough like  _ you  _ to soothe him. As he gets closer, you shift your hand up—press the pads of your fingers to his cheek, gentle as you can. A snarl rolls out of his chest, and he snaps his teeth, but he doesn’t snap them  _ at  _ you—being as how you remain in possession of all five fingers, for which you are most grateful. 

“Shh, shh, Karkat, shh,” you breathe. Stroke your fingers soothingly along his jaw, the crest of his cheek. His skin burns beneath you. His fury calls to something in your chest—something as ancient as anything, something that wants nothing more than to calm and soothe and comfort. You take a deep breath, then let it out in a low, steady shoosh. In front of you, Karkat wobbles. Turns his face into your touch and he watches you, rapt, his eyes glassy and his pupils blown wide with terror. You shoosh him again, nice and gentle, and he sucks in a ragged breath.

“There you go, little brother, that’s it. Settle down for me,” you murmur. You curl your fingers behind his ear, fit your palm against his cheek. Pap him—soft, tiny pats against his cheek, steady enough to focus him but gentle enough not to spook him. His chest hitches and he turns his face, nuzzles into your hand. You sweep a thumb across his cheek, back and forth, a grounding rhythm. You hear his throat click as he swallows. 

“Gamzee,” he whispers, his voice a cracked, broken thing. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here, I’ve got you.” You sit down, scoot closer to him—open your arms and legs, show at him a safe place to hide against your chest. “C’mere, littlest brother. Let me hold you. Let me see you.”

And he does. He sucks in another ragged breath and then buries himself against you, claws digging into your back. You fold yourself around him—squeeze your knees against his sides and wrap your arms around his back, though you’re careful not to rest your weight on him, lest you injure him further. You can’t see where he’s hurt, not through the mess of cloth and blood sticking to him. His shirt’s torn clean through (and one of his new ones, too,  _ fuck)  _ and you try not to think about his skin bein’ torn that way. Try really motherfuckin’ hard.

“I’m sorry,” Karkat chokes against you, breathing in hot, terrified gasps against the skin of your neck. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it,  _ fuck,  _ I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry—”

“Shh, no, best friend, no.” You rock him gently, try to soothe him with the motion—your lusus never rocked you, but your Karkat does, sometimes, so you figure it’s gotta comfort him some. “No sorries. You don’t have anything to go apologizin’ for, and if you figure you do, we can jam it out later. I gotta take a look at your hurts, though—hold still for me now, hm? That’s it, Karkat—my brave little diamond, you’re so strong,  _ shhh—” _

He whines, high-pitched and frightened, as you carefully slice his shirt the rest of the way off with a careful claw, peelin’ it away from him. It sticks to his skin, damp with his blood, and he winces, despite all your gentleness. It is motherfucking awful to see him hurting so. What’s  _ more  _ motherfucking awful, though, is the goddamn ruin what’s been made of his back. There are four deep slashes running diagonal from the back of his right shoulder to the middle of his ribs on the left, right through both grubscars. Hot red blood pours down his spine and flanks, and each gasping breath pushes more out. 

Fuck. You think you’re gonna be sick. But—after. You have a job right now, and it’s one you’re not going to fucking  _ fail.  _ You wrap your arm around his waist, below those terrible gashes, and hug him tight to you. He uncurls just enough to wrap his arms around your neck, shaking. 

“It’s okay,” you murmur. Cradle his head with your free hand, stroke his hair. “It’s okay, little brother, it’s okay. Naught but a little scratch—we’ll get you fixed up in no time. We just gotta get you to the medic’s office, they’ll—”

“No,” he gasps, shaking his head. “No, can’t see, nobody can see—”

“Oh—oh, love, no. Okay. Okay, we’ll bring somebody down here. The medics already know, they already know, you don’t have to hide from them,  _ shhh. _ ” You glance over your shoulder—Noir and Nuodel both stand outside the inquisition room door, watching you warily. You bare your teeth at them, all your fear of them overridden by fear for your best of brothers. “Well?” you demand. “What the  _ fuck  _ are you waiting for? Get me a motherfucking medic already!”

Nuodel flattens her ears, but Noir sets a hand on her arm and vanishes up the stairs. You turn your attention back to Karkat, nosing along his temple and breathing quick, every exhale a quiet almost-shoosh. He huddles against you, claws kneading against your back, his whole body a whiplash tremble. He’s apologizing again, over and over, like he done somethin’ wrong. Fuck, maybe he has. You ain’t got the full story—but whatever he’s done could never be enough to drive you away from him, nor to warrant such heavy guilt in his voice.

“Hush, now, best friend.” You press your forehead to his, cup his face in your hands. Your fingers leave streaks of his blood where you touch. Your stomach rolls. “I done told you, you don’t need to be apologizin’ right now. We’ll get it all sorted later. Just breathe for me, little brother. Breathe, rest. I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you.”

He looks up at you, his eyes feverish-bright. “Pale for you,” he says, desperate. “Pale for you, I’m so pale for you, I am,  _ I am—” _

“I know.” You fit your palm to his cheek again, pap him until he slumps his weight into you again, shivering. “I know, little brother, shh-shh-shh, I know. I’m so motherfuckin’ pale for you, too. Pale as motherfuckin’ bone, for now and evermore.”

He makes a broken little sound—fuck, almost a sob, and you pull him closer to you again. He buries his face against your shoulder, whimpering like heartbreak, and the sound would make you murder if you thought that could fix it. You hum a soft little tune under your breath, try to soothe at him with the gentle clicks you heard his lusus make sometimes, and he shakes and bleeds and hurts.

Ain’t long before a pair of medics come rushing down the stairs behind Noir, their hands full of bags and boxes and shit. They both slow as they approach the door, shoulders tense and steps uncertain. You swivel your head around to look them both over, your nostrils flaring. They’re both human—soft. Easily dispatchable. Won’t be much of a threat to your littlest brother, and you need them, anyway, though you’re loathe to let anyone near him. 

Still. Little brother is bleeding, and you don’t know how to make it stop. You figure they do. “Well?” you ask. Flash them your teeth to hurry them along. “Get the fuck on with it.  _ Help me, motherfuckers.” _

Karkat growls as they near him, stiffening in your arms. You keep a hand cupped around the back of his head, keep those nubby (but still hells of fucking dangerous, with the strength in that jaw of his) teeth close to your own neck, where you’re confident he won’t bite. The medics crouch behind him, chatting quickly to each other in English that you can’t be bothered to translate. You recognize your name when they say it, though, your head jerking up.

“Makara.” One of them is holding a careful hand out towards Karkat, and you  _ hate  _ the look in their eyes. They’re scared of you. Of fucking  _ course  _ they are—always have been. You’re slow, but you’re not motherfucking  _ stupid.  _ You see the way they look at you. You know they all think you’re a monster. You know they’re all probably right. But to think that you would let your own awfulness get in the way of them helping your Karkat, to think you would let  _ anything  _ hurt your Karkat, even your own motherfucking self—

How  _ dare  _ they. How fucking  _ dare. _

“What?” you snap. “What the fuck you want? You don’t need my motherfuckin’ permission for everything. Just  _ fix  _ him.”

The medic’s mouth presses into a thin line, and then they sit back and pull on some blue gloves. “Right. Just make sure you keep a hold on him, then.”

And you do. Karkat growls and snarls and tries to writhe out of your grip the first couple times they touch him, his chest heaving with his fear, and you hold him and pet his face and whisper what comfort you can. He’s weak—don’t hardly stand a chance of getting away from you, or them, and he seems to realize that a couple minutes in. He collapses against you instead, whimpering in what way feels fit to break your heart, all high-pitched fear and pain. 

“Sorry,” he’s choking out in ragged gasps, twitching as they rub ointment across his skin. “Sorry, ‘m sorry, fuck,  _ fuck,  _ please _ —” _

“Not a punishment, best friend,” you murmur at his ear. Keep your arms wrapped tight around his, feels his claws flex against your spine. “Not doin’ this to make you sorry. Don’t you even think on that. You’re okay, you’re fine, shhh, doing so well. We just gotta get you fixed up. Won’t hurt much longer now, not much longer—”

And thank Messiahs,  _ thank motherfucking Messiahs,  _ you ain’t a liar. The ointment they slathered over his skin seems to dull his pain, and he fades off into ragged little pants as they clear away his blood and set to suturing him. You squeeze your eyes shut—can’t bear to watch that needle pierce his precious hide over and over again—and lean your cheek between his horns, shooshing him softly. By the time they finish sewin’, he’s limp in your arms, save for his sporadic little shivers. 

“There,” one of the medics says, sitting back on her heels. Her gloves are coated in your best friend’s blood. “The bleeding’s just about stopped. This—” She changes her gloves, then holds up a small gray tube. “—is antibiotic ointment. It needs to go on every time you change his bandages, which should be done every four to six hours for the first few days, and then once a day after that.  Understand?”

You nod, committing the words to memory. You forget a lot of shit, but you ain’t  _ never  _ gonna forget somethin’ where Karkat is concerned. 

“Good.” She smears some of the ointment onto her fingers, then rubs it across the fresh black stitches. Karkat’s breath hitches around a low whine, and you scratch softly through his hair to soothe him. Once she’s done that, she winds several white bandages into place around his torso, from just under his arms to the middle of his ribs. She plasters a large white pad over the marks on his shoulder, then sits back again. “There. You want to put the bandages on just like that, okay? And if they start to look infected—you know what that looks like? Alright, good—then we need to see him immediately.” She snaps off her gloves, sighing. “Listen. He wasn’t fully recovered from his blood donation a few weeks ago, and he’s lost a lot of blood today, too. I don’t think it’s enough to warrant a transfusion or a saline drip yet, but he needs time to recover. No jobs, no training, no nothing for at least two weeks. Light exercise only after that, for another two weeks.”

Poor Karkat’s too tired to protest even that—he just pants wearily against your shoulder, trembling. You agree for him, smoothing a hand gently down the back of his neck. “You got it, sister,” you say. “I’ll make sure he minds.” And then, more quietly, because they  _ did  _ help you, you add, “And thank you. Most motherfuckin’ grateful to you, we are.”

“You’re welcome,” the medic says, pushing herself to her feet and helping her partner gather up their equipment. “I’d rather not do it again, though, if it’s all the same to you.”

You huff out a tense little laugh, standing and scooping Karkat into your arms. You hold him careful—let him lean against your chest, his chin propped on your shoulder and his legs wrapped loosely around your waist as you tuck an arm under his ass and rest the other carefully around his lower back, where it won’t brush against his bandages. He stirs slightly in your arms—mutters something that sounds damn well foolishly close to, “I can walk.”

“Yeah, okay, bro,” you say, just to appease his little self, but you don’t put him down. Ain’t no  _ way.  _ Ain’t no way he can fight you about it, either, and he doesn’t bother to try. Just huddles down close to you and leans his head against yours. 

“Here.” One of the medics offers you a heavy white sheet. “That should help him warm up some and keep the other trolls from seeing the wounds. We’ll clean up down here. Go on, then. Get out—go rest.”

You are most certainly okay with that plan of action, but you have two things to do right quick. First, you kneel beside that purple sister what has Karkat’s blood on her claws. She’s limp, unmoving, unbreathing—well and truly dead. You think Karkat’s gonna be right fucked up about that, and you hate her all the more for it. He laid a swift blow, though. Tore her throat clean through with his claws, sliced through the vulnerable hide where her chitin plates didn’t reach. (You gotta wonder how he caught her so unguarded as to leave her throat open, but that can wait.) 

There are deeper gashes along her arms and face, but those look older—as does the other dead body in the corner, the one what has only purple and bronze blood sheeting it. Karkat’s starting to breathe more choppily against your neck, even as you brace a hand against the back of his head to keep him from looking at what havoc he wrought. You reach out and take your motherfucking right from his kill, as he did for your kill—pull one of the sister’s canines out her jaw (a short canine, white and smooth—young, oh, she was a young adult still) and slide it into your pocket. 

Then you straighten up, keeping Karkat cradled close to you, and leave that motherfucking room behind. You stop in front of Noir, look up at him—you have to tilt your chin up just the littlest fucking bit. Won’t be much longer before you’re taller than he is. Should be hitting your second growth soon, you, and what good use you will make of it.

“What—” you start, keeping your voice quiet and calm so as not to disturb your moirail, “the  _ fuck  _ happened here? How comes my palemate to be wounded so?”

“That’s—a bit of a long story,” Noir admits. 

“That’s a bit of a shitty-ass answer.” 

Noir smiles grimly at you. “So it is. Well, if you want a better answer, I suppose I should humor you. Karkat decided to test his abilities—I merely provided him an outlet that would benefit me. But I assure you—” He pats the gun holstered at his hip. “If I had thought he was in mortal danger, I would have killed that purpleblood as soon as I had the chance. It’s regrettable that he was injured, but his wounds are hardly—”

“What motherfuckin’ abilities?”

“Hm?”

“What  _ motherfuckin’—” _

“Fight,” Karkat says, a little gasp against your shoulder that snaps all your attention to him immediately. “Was—wanted to practice—fighting, ‘s all—”

“Why the  _ fuck—”  _ you start, and then bite off, because now ain’t the time to be scoldin’ him. 

“Sorry,” he says, all choked. Fuck. Fuck, sounds like he’s about to cry, and you croon apology at him, nuzzle into his hair. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Hush, now, shhh, little brother mine,” you murmur. Kiss the tip of one ear and sway softly in place. “That’s enough, now. Just you rest. All that can be sorted later.” You glance up at Noir, frown fierce at him. “You don’t  _ ever  _ pit my palemate in a fight against anything without going through  _ me,  _ you understand? I will tolerate a lot of motherfucking shit—” Your eyes dart over, meet Nuodel’s. You have a  _ deal,  _ and that deal involves Karkat being left  _ well enough alone.  _ “But I will not tolerate my moirail being endangered.”

“Of course. That’s only sensible.” Noir bows his head towards you—if he’d have had horns, you would have thought the movement a threat. (It’s still a threat, you think.) 

“You’ll forgive if I don’t see you this morning, sister,” you say at Nuodel—not a request. Her jaw rolls, but she nods stiffly. “Much obliged. Have a good motherfuckin’ night, then.”

You leave those two motherfuckers alone at the bottom of the stairs, slipping back to your own block as quick as you can. Karkat is whining, low and uneasy, and you figure the numbing gel they slathered on him must be wearing off. You kick your door shut behind you, lock it tight, then lean against the wall, shove your face into the crook of Karkat’s neck and breathe. He’s okay. He’s okay, he’s safe, fuck,  _ motherfuck— _

“Karkat,” you breathe, your voice cracking. Oh fuck. Oh  _ fuck you were so scared— _ “Karkat, Karkat,  _ Karkat—” _

His arms tighten around your neck, his fingers fumbling through your hair. “Shh, shh,” he says, his voice a weak rasp. “Gamzee, shh. ‘s okay. We’re okay. I’m—”

“Don’t you say sorry again, motherfucker, don’t you  _ do it—” _

You hear his teeth click as he shuts his mouth, swallows. “Okay.”

You take a few more deep breaths to steady yourself, your free hand roaming across the warm, living expanse of him—and then you pull yourself together, because you have a goddamn palemate to take care of. You ease him down out of your arms, intent on settling him in the pile, but he shakes his head. “Bloody,” he says solemnly, glancing down at himself, and—yeah, okay, he is. Purple and red blood alike streak his skin, and he looks motherfuckin’ miserable about it. “Ablutions?”

“You think you can make it through ablutions?” you ask, stroking his hair. He rests his head on your chest, leaning heavily against you. His legs tremble with his weight. 

“Mm.” He wrinkles his nose. “I—yes? We’re gonna have to. I don’t wanna get this shit all over the pile  _ or  _ in our sopor. Fuck, but the bandages—”

“Hey, I have an idea.” You lead him into the ablutions block, guiding him to sit down on the toilet seat with a towel under him. Ease off his pants and boxers  _ (after  _ locking your suitemates’ adjacent door) and reach for a soft washcloth. You soak it with warm water, lather it with soap, and then set to work carefully wiping the blood off of his skin. It’s harder to get it out of his hair and out from under his claws, but you do your best. You shed your own clothes and rinse the blood from your skin, too, then dress you both in clean clothes.

“Thanks,” Karkat says, his voice soft. You hum and scoop him up again—his solid weight is comforting in your arms, and he doesn’t complain, this time. You ease the both of you into the pile, barricading the world out with heaps of pillows and the gray blanket and the big red crab. He turns into you, pushing his head underneath your chin. His little horns fit right against the sides of your jaw. 

“You can sleep, brother, if you’re tired,” you murmur, tracing your fingers softly up and down the bare skin of his sides. You’d left his shirt off—no sense in makin’ him lift his arms if he doesn’t have to. “I’ll take care of you, keep a watch. Won’t go anywhere.”

Karkat is quiet for a long, long while—long enough you almost think he’s fallen asleep already. Then he says at you, his voice raw and tired, “I killed her.”

“Yeah.” You scratch softly at the back of his neck, sling a leg over his. “You did. You were defending yourself, best friend. You don’t need to get cut up about it—and if you are, we’ll jam about it, yeah? But right now you’re in no state to do anything but rest. Don’t fret about anything but feelin’ better.”

His claws curl between you. “I don’t think I’m ever going to feel better again.”

“You will,” you whisper, though your heart hurts for him. Between the two of you, you always thought you’d be the first to kill another troll. “I’ll make sure of it. You won’t ever have to do that motherfuckin’ shit again, bro, not ever. I’ll keep you safe. Won’t let no harm come to you, no matter what.” You curl up tighter around him, breathe. Feel the rattle of your breath in your lungs.  _ “No matter what it takes, best friend.” _

“Okay,” Karkat says, squeezing his eyes closed. His fingers shake. “Yeah, okay.”

He doesn’t speak any more after that, and you don’t prompt him to. You just hold him as he shivers himself to sleep (or passes out, you’re not sure which)—bundle him up in the big gray blanket and pet his hair, his face, his arms. His little body stays tense even in sleep, his claws twitching anxiously, teeth grinding. You breathe out quiet little shooshes until he relaxes, and then, once you’re sure he’s well asleep, you have a tiny motherfucking breakdown.

You bury your face in his hair and you bawl—quiet, quiet as you can, though you’ve never been the quietest crier. You suck in deep, heaving breaths and shudder them out again, muffling your coughs against the pillows. A fine, shuddering tremble takes over your limbs as you think on him, on your Karkat, on his blood and his hurt and his  _ dying— _

Anger is something you’ve never been quite comfortable with. It burns hot, fierce, terrible—stirs up things in you that you’d rather be left well enough alone. Anger is not safe. Not for you, not for anybody  _ around  _ you. The sopor helps with that, most times. Keeps you cool and calm, but even sopor has to yield to the all-consuming  _ fury  _ of seeing your palemate injured. Now that the fury’s faded (and quick did it fade—sopor can still do that for you, at least), it’s rapidly replaced by your familiar old friend: fear.

Fear shakes you to your  _ bones.  _ It wraps itself around you like a cold blanket, squeezes your heart until you think it might  _ pop,  _ slams itself against the barriers of your mind because it wants to get  _ out out out.  _ Luckily, you're not the one in charge of those barriers (sopor’s a steadfast friend to you) because you’d let them fucking  _ fall,  _ you would spill this fear out into the world and watch it  _ scream  _ for what it did to your moirail. The world would tremble at your feet, and you would be  _ king— _ king of rot, king of ruin and decay, king enough to say  _ stay away from him, all as might harm, STAY MOTHERFUCKING AWAY. _

But your fear stays with you. You do not cast it out (you cannot) and it rots your own pan, instead. You shake and shake and shake, wrapped tight around your tiny palemate and choking on your own sobs. You imagine what the world would be like without him. It is one in which, you think, you would give up the sopor easily, if only to tear the universe apart. (Funny, that he who you want to abandon your addiction for is also he who makes you want to keep it. Messiahs’ fucking  _ jokes.) _

You dare not sleep, not with this fear curdling in you, so you keep a watch, as you promised him. You set your chin on top of his head once your sobs have faded to sniffles, and you watch and you wait. Not a thing comes to harm you, while he sleeps, and you reassure yourself with the sight and scent of him. He’s here. He’s alive. As long as those two things remain true, everything will be okay, and you will not watch the world burn.


	23. you dream about birds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: injuries, blood, mentions of violence
> 
> chapter track: "bird’s nest” by jordaan mason & the horse museum

You dream about birds. 

There’s a nest of them, just above eye-level, in the Alternian jungle outside of your hivecluster. The moonlight trickles down through the leaves, scattering deep shadows across the dark tree branches and the tangled, dewy grass. The breeze is cool and soft. The jungle rustles quietly around you—content, unhurried.  You scale the tree easily, peering into the nest. The birds are sleeping.

There are three of them—ugly things, bald and pink and tiny. Two of them have a thin, stained piece of red twine tied around their legs, tying them together. Trapping them. They wouldn’t make more than a mouthful of a meal, for you. They’re all skin and bones and big orange beaks. They couldn’t stop you if you wanted to eat them. They’re helpless. They’re so painfully, terribly helpless. 

You hear a flutter of wings, and then a bigger bird perches on the edge of the nest. His feathers are dark and glossy, glinting in the moonlight. He regards you carefully with two black eyes, cocking his head first one way, then the other. He’s quickly distracted by the needy chirps of his young, however, as they spring awake when they feel the nest tremble upon his arrival. They tip their heads up, open their beaks and cry for him. He feeds them, lowering his beak into theirs and bobbing his head. Disgusting, but almost—

Almost sweet, you think. Sweet to think that any creature would actively  _ want  _ to provide for those weaker than it. 

Once he’s finished feeding his ugly children, the bird  _ (featherbeast,  _ your mind whispers, drifting dizzily between English and Alternian) lowers himself into the nest, tucking them under his wings. One of them sticks a scrawny pink head out from under him, and then it opens an eye. Huh. You didn’t know they could do that when they were this young. Its eye is blue—impossibly, piercingly blue.

The wind gusts around you, suddenly, and you dig your claws into the tree to keep your balance. The tree writhes underneath you, and you yank your hands away and crash back onto the forest floor. Your claws are stained with blood—it glints deep, bruised purple in the moonlight. You hiss in disgust, rubbing them off in the damp grass. Then, deep in the twisting brambles around you, you hear a low growl. Your head jerks up, heart slamming a panicked tempo in your chest, and there, just a few feet in front of you, you see the gleaming rust eyes of a cholerbear. Fuck fuck fuck—

You scramble to your feet, curving your claws and growling low in your throat. The cholerbear ignores you, though, padding forward to stand in the clearing. It rises onto its hind feet, towers above you in a column of white fur and heavy muscle. The stink of its breath swells around you, warm and fetid. You snarl up at it, rage (and fear, yes, oh, so much shameful fear) prickling down your back and shoulders. It lifts a paw and you flinch back, expecting a swipe—but it only sets its paw on the tree in front of you, sniffing at the nest. The empty nest. The birds. Where are the birds? What happened to the birds where are the birds  _ where did the birds go— _

The panic that surges inside of you at the sight of the empty nest is completely nonsensical, but you shriek and lunge at the cholerbear anyhow. You scramble up its back, your claws coming away tangled in hot fur and purple blood, until you can balance on its shoulder. It doesn’t move—doesn’t even flinch. Just turns its head towards you, breathes in fresh forest air and breathes out rot and ruin. You stare at the nest from eye level again, but it remains empty. There are soft black feathers layering the bottom.

Your heart breaks for those birds—for those stupid, stupid birds. 

The cholerbear shakes itself and you spring from its shoulder, stumbling back onto the ground. Your cheeks feel damp, your eyes feel sore. Your mouth is dry. It’s so dry. You wrinkle your nose, bring a hand up and rub it across your lips. The feeling grows worse. It tickles at your teeth and throat and shake your head violently, trying to throw it off. Your tongue feels thick. You scrub at your mouth again, then spit, and—

And your mouth is full of feathers.

You wake up in a trembling rush, gasping for breath and reaching for your mouth. The movement sends a blaze of pain through your shoulder, and you choke on a gasp. Freeze and slam your eyes shut again, your heart hammering. Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _

“—okay, you’re okay, little brother, shhh. It’s alright. Just a dream, that’s all, just a dream. You’re awake now, you’re here with me.” A hand touches your face, cool and soothing, and you turn hungrily into it. It smells like a storm, a forest in fall. Gamzee. “I’m here, best friend, I got you. All’s well. Just settle down, now—you don’t want to be moving too quickly.”

You crack an eye open, glancing over his face. He offers you a tentative little smile, brushing his palm across your cheek. “Fuck,” you mumble.

“Good morning to you too, brother.” He leans his forehead against yours, cupping your face in his hand. “How you feelin’?”

“It’s morning?” You squint, rolling your head, but the steady green light above you offers no sense of time. “Shit. How long was I out?”

“Only a few hours. Here.” He reaches behind him, offers you a water bottle, bless his fucking soul. You take it and gulp greedily at it, intent on washing the fuzzy, dry feeling from your teeth and tongue. “Easy, best friend. Don’t wanna make yourself sick.”

You flip him off and continuing chugging, until he reaches forward and gently takes the bottle from you. You growl weakly at him, flattening your ears, and he raises an eyebrow. “Listen,  _ buddy,” _ you grouch, “I just lost like half of my body weight in fluids, give me the  _ water.” _

It’s a gross exaggeration, probably, but Gamzee’s eyebrows still furrow in concern. He hesitates, then asks, “You gonna mind me? Drink it slow, Karkat. Won’t do you no good if you throw it all back the fuck up.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” You reach for the water again (with the arm that  _ doesn’t  _ feel like it’s on fucking  _ fire  _ when you move it) and he lets you take it. You tip it into your mouth, although you do grudgingly slow down. Once you feel a little less like the fucking Sahara, you rest the bottle in the space between your stomach and Gamzee’s. Your mind sifts quickly, horribly, through your memories, and you breathe through your teeth and lean your head against his chest. “Fuck. I really fucked up, huh?”

“Well,” Gamzee says, stroking his fingers through your cropped hair. You don’t look at him. “Not so much as you fear, I think. But you did fuck up somethin’ fierce—by the  _ messiahs,  _ what were you thinkin’, agreeing to fight an adult highblood? That’s some motherfucking stupid shit, best friend.”

You cringe—you did tell him that, didn’t you? But it’s better than telling him what you  _ actually  _ agreed to do. Because you did agree to try and pacify that highblood, didn’t you?  _ Didn’t you?  _ Sure, maybe you weren’t totally  _ confident  _ about your decision, but you were seriously considering it. And Noir may have forced you before you were ready, but—but—

But you were thinking about it. You were thinking about cheating on your palemate, and that’s crime enough. (So is lying to him, come to think of it. A real criminal, you. A real criminal and a real shitty-ass palemate.)

“I—I just wanted—” you start, kneading your claws into his shirt. Your heart feels tight. You don’t want to lie to him, but how could you—how could you ever explain? And even if you could blame it all on Noir, it would only upset Gamzee. He doesn’t want to leave. He was adamant about that much, at least, and you don’t want to make him feel like he has to leave for your sake. Besides, Noir didn’t even do anything that bad. You had  _ technically  _ said yes, so it’s  _ technically  _ your fault. “I wanted to know,” you finish lamely, shutting your eyes so you don’t have to see his disappointment. 

“Oh, Karkat.” He sighs heavily, his fingers fussing with the short tufts of your hair. “Wanted to know what, motherfucker? How long it would take a highblood to maul you?”

“No.” You hunch your shoulders, then quickly relax them because  _ ow, fuck.  _ “I wanted to know if I could—win. I wanted to know if I was strong enough. I knew I wasn’t going to die—Noir promised. It wasn’t  _ that  _ dangerous.”

Gamzee laughs, but it’s sharp—bitter, unnatural in his voice. Your eyes ache. “Explain to me, brother, exactly what happened from the time I left you in pile this evening.”

So you take a breath, and you do. You tell him about Sollux’s visit. You tell him about Noir inviting you downstairs, informing you about Gamzee’s own training (here he intercedes with his own comment—tells you he won’t be leavin’ you for nothing, not even training, not until you’re healed, and you are so selfishly grateful for it). Only here, then, does your story shift. 

“And so I thought—I thought that I would need to be stronger, in order to take care of myself while you were gone,” you say—it’s not  _ exactly  _ a lie. You do need to get stronger, for the both of you. You’re skin and bones and not much else, right now. It’s a far cry from the threshecutioner you always wanted to be. “I’ve been practicing, so I wanted to actually  _ try  _ fighting something—some _ one  _ dangerous, and Noir made an offer. The highblood killed her moirail when he went in to calm her down after an inquisition. She went mad. He sent me in to see what I could do, and—” You flex your claws. Think about purple blood. “I won.”

“So you did,” Gamzee agrees. He doesn’t sound thrilled. To be fair, you aren’t, either. You are the  _ furthest  _ thing from thrilled. You are the least-thrilled person on this fucking bitch of a planet. “And I’m proud of you for that. You’re as fierce a motherfucker as ever there was. But  _ Karkat.  _ You are so motherfucking  _ stupid,  _ sometimes. How in the hell did you ever think that was a good idea?”

“I didn’t—” you start, but you—you  _ did  _ think it was a good idea, didn’t you? At least you were  _ thinking  _ about thinking it was a good idea, and that counts, doesn’t it? You are. You are so motherfucking  _ stupid.  _ You press your face to his chest and shudder. “I’m sorry. I know it was stupid, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry—”

He doesn’t tell you not to apologize, this time. He smooths his fingers softly, so fucking softly, across the bandages on your back and shoulder. You whine high in your throat, and he curls up around you. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, it’s okay. All’s forgiven, little brother. Just don’t do it again. Don’t you ever fucking do that again. I was so  _ scared— _ you know what I would be like without you, best friend? Do you have  _ any idea  _ how motherfucking awful your death would take me?”

You nod, miserable at the thought. Stupid. So stupid, you. You just wanted—you just wanted to help him, but every time you try to help you just make it  _ worse.  _ Fuck you, seriously.  _ Fuck you.  _ “I know. I won’t do it again, fuck, never ever.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” You lift your arm, ignore the sting that races across your back, from shoulder to ribs, and wrap it around his waist. “I don’t want to leave you. Not ever. I won’t do anything like that again, not without talking to you first.”

He relaxes against you, dipping his head and pressing a kiss to your hair. “Thank you, best friend. I’d be mighty motherfucking grateful if you did so.” 

The two of you lay in silence for a while, and you breathe in his scent and focus on the cool shelter of his arms and don’t think about the fact that you are now a bonafide murderer. Gamzee hums a slow, soothing tune above your head, trailing his fingers gently up and down your spine. Your back is a dull throb of pain, even when you’re not moving, and you wonder just how deeply your enemy rent you. (Not as deeply as you deserved.)

“Oh, hey,” Gamzee mumbles after a minute. “The medics brought us some shit while you were sleeping. Fresh bandages, more ointment—pills for the pain, if you want them. You want them?”

“Fuck yes.”

“Might make you sleepy.”

“Even better.”

He gently eases your arm off of his waist and you tuck it close to your chest, instead, trying to keep your weight off of your shoulder. You watch as he slips over to the door and scoops up a small gray duffel bag, setting it down next to your pile and rummaging through it. He pulls out a bright orange bottle with a victorious “a-ha!” and fumbles with it, frowning. Fumbles with it for a  _ long  _ time, frowning.

“The fuck are you doing?” you ask.

“I can’t get it open,” he says, his voice mournful as he tries to twist the lid open. “Shit’s stuck tighter than some motherfuckin’ super-glue on top of some righteous duct tape.”

“Here—let me try, you giant grub.”

He hands you the bottle and you try valiantly to twist the lid off, to no avail. 

“Shit’s a motherfucking conundrum, brother,” Gamzee says, breezily accepting your defeat at the hands of a pill bottle. “Think we can just smash it open? I got a club or two what’d make a quick job of it.”

“No,” you say scowling. “I can  _ do it.”  _ You set your teeth against the lid, growling, and Gamzee holds his hands up in surrender.

“Right on, best friend.” As you struggle with the goddamned bottle, he turns back to the bag, pulling out fresh bandages, ointment, and a bottle of something clear and blue. “Well, why you work on that, would you mind if I changed those bandages of yours? Be more comfortable if you fall asleep while they’re clean. Would hate to wake you up in the middle of the day to do it.”

You grunt your acceptance, far too busy gnawing your way through the pill bottle’s lid to answer him properly. Leave it to humans to create the most hells-damned stupid-ass shit in the universe _ — _ dangling relief just in front of you and then  _ putting an immobile lid on it.  _ Bastards. And they said  _ trolls  _ were the sadistic species.

“Think you can sit up for me?” Gamzee asks, and you grudgingly do—or try to, at least. As soon as you shift your weight, pain flares up and down your back again and you gasp. Gamzee makes a soft, anxious noise and wraps an arm around your good shoulder, gently easing you up to lean against his side. You pant there for a minute, shuddering as waves of  _ ohmygod fuck that hurts you stupid dumb idiot troll why would you do that  _ wash over you from your back. “You good? Best friend?”

“‘m fine,” you say, your voice a weaker rasp than you want it to be. You growl and dig your teeth back into the lid, where there are already several impressive indents.

“Right.” Gamzee’s hands flutter across your back—soft, uncertain touches. “Tell me if I get to hurting you too much, alright?”

“You’ll know, trust me.”

“Good.” You feel him ease his claws under the bandage on your shoulder, peeling it away. Fortunately, none of the adhesive is touching your actual wound, and it comes off without a fuss. You still hear him suck in a breath as he sets the first bandage aside, though, and you try to twist your head around to see but shudder when it sends another sting of pain down your spine. “Fuck, Karkat.”

“What?” you demand. “What’s wrong? Is it—bad?”

_ “Fuck yes it’s bad,”  _ he hisses, and he sounds genuinely pissed, oops. But he takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, his voice is mellower. “Any sorta hurt on you is bad, little brother, and lookin’ on it doesn’t put me in the most mirthful of motherfucking moods. But—” He sighs. “It’s not bleedin’ anymore. That’s somethin’, at least.”

You reach for the bandage as he moves back to the ablutions block. The white gauze is sticky with your bright red blood, and there’s—more of it than you’d like to admit. Your stomach rolls, and you set the bandage aside, gritting your teeth. Gamzee kneels beside you again, resting a hand against the back of your neck.

“Gonna clean it off now, best friend. Hold still for me as best you can, hm?” A warm washcloth touches your back and you shiver but do your best not to flinch away from him as he draws it gently across your wound. 

Gamzee works in silence, unwinding the bandage around your ribs and back once he’s finished your shoulder and cleaning the wound there, too. Lukewarm water (and probably other things—things you’d rather not think about) rolls down your back and soaks the waistband of your pants, and you squirm uncomfortably. Each drag of the washcloth is a prickling, sharp pain across your skin, and after three minutes you can’t quite bite back a soft growl. 

In response, Gamzee presses a soft kiss to the nape of your neck. “Shh,” he murmurs, his free hand papping your side gently. “Shh-shh-shh. Almost done, littlest. You’re doing so well for me—just gotta get this last part, okay?”

You nod miserably, rolling the (still fucking unopened) pill bottle between your palms. As promised, Gamzee sets the washcloth aside a few swipes later, reaching for the ointment instead. “Wait,” you say, a shameful burst of want from your chest to your voice. Gamzee waits. “Can you—can—it—”

“Shh.” He props his chin on your good shoulder, smooths his fingers across the small of your back. “Say it at me, it’s alright. Anything you need, palebrother.”

You take a deep breath, grit your teeth. “It feels—better—when you clean it.”

“Ain’t I already done that?” Gamzee asks—not accusing, just soft, curious. “Looks fair clean to me, little brother. I can get at it again if you want, but you sound all kinds of sore already. I don’t want to be hurtin’ you more than I have to.”

You hunch your shoulders. “Yeah—yeah, never mind. You’re right.”

“Nooo,” Gamzee protests, leaning his head gently against your shoulder. “What is it, love? What you wanting?”

“‘s stupid.”

“Hush up, there.” He pats your stomach, nuzzling the nape of your neck. “Ain’t no stupid in the pile, you know that. Here, I can get at cleanin’ it again, if that’s what you need.” He touches the washcloth to your bag again and you flinch, because the washcloth is warm and rough and unfamiliar to your skin. Unnatural. It’s unnatural to have a wound cleaned that way, and your flesh damn well knows it. It’s far too large a wound to rely on tongue-washing alone, though, but leave it to your shitty-ass hindbrain to refuse to acknowledge that. 

“Ow,” you say, as pathetically as you can, and Gamzee (predictably) jerks the washcloth away. 

“Shit—sorry, brother. You don’t want that?” You can almost hear the rusty gears turning in his head. “But you—I—oh.  _ Oh.”  _

A second later and his tongue is on your skin, softly rasping its way from your shoulder to your ribs, and the wave of relief that crashes over you is staggering.  _ There,  _ your hindbrain whispers, satisfied.  _ That’s how a wound is  _ supposed  _ to be cleaned.  _ You’d watched several medical schoolfeeds, growing up—fuck knew when you were going to be attacked by something or someone stronger than yourself—and they’d all emphasized the value of tongue-bathing a wound when possible. It increases blood flow to the injury site, reduces risk of infection, and  _ fuck  _ does it make the hurt feel better. Unfortunately, you can’t  _ reach  _ this particular wound with your tongue without twisting your own head off first, but—

But that’s what your clademates are for, what your  _ palemate _ is for, and it feels even better when  _ he  _ does it. It reminds you of your lusus, of scraped elbows and small bandages and comforting, clicking lullabies. It reminds you of being small and safe and cared for. You let out a soft breath and slump against your knees, your eyes sliding shut. Gamzee chirps quietly, softly, every few seconds—the noise is stupidly comforting. Once he’s finished, he draws back and kisses your shoulder.

“There,” he murmurs, his voice warm and satisfied. “Feel better, best friend?”

“Mm-hm.” You chirr softly at him, eyes half-lidded, and he gives you a gentle squeeze before beginning to smear something cold and sticky across your back. Eugh. “Gross. The fuck’s that?”

“Antibiotic ointment,” Gamzee explains, wiping his fingers off on his pants once he’s done, then beginning to wind a fresh bandage around your ribs and back. “Helps keep it from gettin’ a hell of an infection. That sister’s claws were probably motherfuckin’ filthy.” He hums unhappily, plastering a piece of gauze over your shoulder, and guilt writhes in your chest. 

“I’m sorry,” you murmur again.

“I know.” He reaches for the pill bottle and you let him take it. He opens his mouth, fits his teeth just beneath the lid, and bites. The plastic splinters and he spits the shards out, then rolls a pill into his palm and offers it to you. “Here. Take this—wash it down with some of this fine-ass swill.” He reaches over and pulls the clear blue drink closer to you.

“The hell is that?” you ask, picking it up and squinting at it.

“Gatorade. The medics said it would help with your, uh—electro—’lectroooo—”

“Electrolytes?”

“Motherfuck yeah, bro. How’d you get so smart?”

You snort and down the pill, along with a mouthful of the Gatorade. Gamzee rummages through the bag again, pulling out a white box. He pulls the lid off and you discover that it’s filled with ice—and with a strange, flat blue square. “Okay, and now what the hell is  _ that?  _ Fuck, did they just give you the whole medic’s office in a bag?”

Gamzee laughs, unrolling the blue square. “Nah, bro. This is a cold compress. They said it would help with the inflammation—you wanna lie down for me? And keep on drinkin’ that shit. You’re all dehydrated as fuck.”

“Bossy, bossy,” you grumble half-heartedly, sprawling out into the pile again. Gamzee drapes a towel across your back, then settles the compress on top of it. It stretches from your shoulders to the middle of your back—a pleasant, cool weight. (Not as pleasant as  _ Gamzee’s  _ cool weight, though.) “Are you planning—”

You cut off when you hear a knock at your door, tensing. A low growl rumbles to life in Gamzee’s chest and he crouches in front of you, his ears flattening. You hear him snuffling at the air, and then he flicks his ears forward again and relaxes. “Smells like Sollux,” he says, glancing back at you. “You up for a visitor, best friend?”

You sniff at the air, confirming what Gamzee’s already told you—Sollux’s honey-sweet scent greets you, and you rest your head on your arms. Being around other trolls while you’re injured goes against every deeply-ingrained instinct you have (because injured trolls are  _ weak,  _ injured trolls should be  _ culled),  _ but Sollux is part of your clade, and that makes him safe—especially since your palemate _ (your big, strong, highblooded palemate,  _ your hindbrain agrees contentedly) is here to defend you if he needs to. 

“Mm, sure,” you murmur, and Gamzee slips over to the door. 

“Hey, little motherfucker,” he greets Sollux cheerfully, and you hear Sollux chuff softly in return. “What the fuck is up?”

“Hey, GZ. I just came to say hi, but, uh—something smells wrong.” You glance over and Sollux is attempting to lean around your moirail, which isn’t much of a feat, considering your moirail is about as wide as twig. “Are you guys okay?”

“Mm.” Gamzee steps back, allowing Sollux into the block and locking the door behind him. He moves back over to you, curling up on the pile between you and Sollux. There’s tension in his legs and shoulders, a tight line down his spine. He keeps his eyes on Sollux as he approaches, sitting down next to the pile. “Well enough, I motherfuckin’ guess. Nobody’s dying.”

“I smell blood.”

“Karkat went and got hisself hurt,” Gamzee says, ears flattening briefly, and you wince again. “Did bleed something fierce, but he’ll be alright.”

“He can also speak for himself,” you interrupt, peeking over your moirail’s side to flick your ears at Sollux. He’s frowning at you. Doesn’t even bother flicking his ears back, the asshole. “Hey, Sollux. Good morning.”

“Hi, KK. How the fuck did you get yourself hurt?” he demands, leaning forward. Gamzee twitches slightly, and you run a hand down his back. How long has it been since he’s had sopor? You know he had some this evening, but you’re not sure he’s had any since. (And _ you _ are clearly incapable of handling him without sopor.) 

You flick your eyes across Sollux, frowning back when your eyes land on his hand. “I could ask you the same question, asshat. What the hell happened to your fingers?” His littlest finger has been bandaged to his ring finger, and he holds his hand protectively to his chest when he notices you staring. 

“Hey, I asked first. Your evasion tactics are unappreciated.”

You growl irritably at him, flapping a hand. “I got into a fight.”

“You  _ what? Seriously?  _ You’ve only been here three weeks, how can you have already pissed somebody off that much? You have some serious talent, you abrasive fucker—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve already been scolded enough for it, fuck off. What happened to your hand?”

“No, you can’t just  _ say that  _ and then switch topics,” Sollux exclaims, his voice growing louder. Gamzee growls quietly and Sollux snaps his mouth shut, takes a deep breath. When he continues, his voice is quieter, though no less earnest. “You look fucking mauled. Are we gonna have a problem? The other guy, I mean—is he still pissed at you? Did you loose? You look like you lost.”

You shake your head (think about torn throats and purple blood) and huff. “You have such charm, such a way with words,” you say, your voice dry. “I always endeavour to look like a loser, you know. It’s my primary goal in life.”

“I’m being  _ serious,  _ you asshole—”

“No, I didn’t lose,” you snap. “And no, we’re not going to have any problems.”

“What if he wants revenge? What if his clade—”

“She’s dead.” You glare at the pillows in your pile, your claws kneading your blanket. “I don’t know about her clade, but we won’t have any problems with her.”

“...woah. Dude. You  _ killed  _ someone?”

You curl up tighter, ignoring the sting in your back and shoulder. 

“Who was she?” Sollux asks, his voice quieter. “Did I know her?”

“Brother, maybe this isn’t the best time—” Gamzee starts, but you shake your head at him and he relents. 

“Her name was Finrel,” you say. It makes your chest ache. You want to pull your own heart out. You’re a murderer. You’re a fucking  _ murderer.  _ You thought it wouldn’t feel so bad. How the fuck can so many trolls do it, if it feels this bad? “She was one of the subjugglators. She—lost it. A rage, and nobody there to—to make it stop.”

You can’t imagine that happening to Gamzee. You can’t imagine how it would feel for him to wake up and realize it’s your blood on his claws. You can’t hurt him like that, not ever, not even if it means letting Nuodel take responsibility for him while he’s off the sopor. This, at least, has proven to you that you’re incapable of handling highblood rages. 

“Oh my god.” Sollux is staring at you, his luminescent eyes wide. “KK. You are—”

Terrible. Awful. Horrible. A blight of shame on the collective conscience of your clade.

“— _ such  _ a badass, holy shit. You killed an  _ adult highblood.” _

You shooshed an adult highblood and then slit her throat while her guard was down. There’s a big fucking difference. You can’t point that out, though. You can’t let them know. You can’t let anyone know you even  _ thought  _ about shooshing someone who wasn’t your moirail. 

You don’t deserve Gamzee.

“Yeah,” you mutter. “Badass. That’s me.”

“All this time I thought you were all bark and no bite.” Sollux laughs—a crackling rasp of a thing, flashing his teeth in a sharp grin. “Guess you proved me wrong, huh?”

“Yeah, so anyway—” You shake yourself off, wipe your claws on the blankets like you can wipe away the memory of her blood. “The fuck happened to your hand?”

“Oh.” Sollux lifts his hand, wiggling his three functional fingers. “I had a talk with Noir. It did not go well.”

You snort. Look at Noir, making his life-ruining rounds. Maybe you  _ should  _ leave the gang, but—but where would you go? And how upset would Gamzee be? “What the fuck does that have to do with your fingers? Did he hurt you?”

“Well,  _ he  _ didn’t. His oversized moirail did. Broke two fingers before we reached an agreement.” Sollux wiggles his fingers again, more mournfully. 

“What the  _ fuck.  _ I was under the impression that this place was better than Alternia. I think I preferred living on a violent murder-planet—at least there I had some distance between one asshole and the next,” you mutter. 

“Eh, don’t be so upset. It was my own fault. If I had argued with an Alternian adult the way I argued with Noir, I would’ve been way worse off. I’m still alive, right? And so are you. We’re lucky.” 

And isn’t that the disappointing truth? If the both of you had squared off with adults on Alternia like you did today, you’d be drowning in pools of your own blood. You suppose you can’t hate this place that much. You didn’t want paradise, you just wanted  _ better than certain death  _ and that’s what you got.

“The fuck did you argue with Noir for?” Gamzee asks, leaning in Sollux’s direction. “Especially with Nuodel around. That sister’s most unmerciful.”

“Ah, well—” Sollux cringes. “That’s a long story. I don’t wanna drag you guys into it.”

“Hey, no. We’re friends, right? You’re  _ supposed  _ to drag us into this shit,” you protest. Sollux’s ears flick, a tiny smile flashing across his face. Fuck, but you pity him. Not like you’d pity a quadrant, but the feeling is still there, deep and persistent. He is weak and you see it and you do not want to murder him for it. This troll belongs to you. This troll is part of your  _ clade.  _

“Yeah—yeah, okay, maybe so.” Sollux inches closer to you, glancing warily at the door. “But you can’t tell anyone, got it? It’s a secret—big secret, hush-hush, we’ll end up with more than a few broken fingers if anyone else finds out.”

“You got it,” you agree. “I’m a fucking  _ badass  _ when it comes to secrets.”

“Me too, little Solbro,” Gamzee adds, and you wince at the reminder. He’s keeping secrets from you (fuck, you  _ know  _ he is), and you’re keeping secrets from him. What a great pair of moirails you make. “So what the fuck is up?”

“Noir wants more purplebloods,” Sollux admits, fiddling with his claws. He won’t meet your eyes. “It’s—fuck, it’s like he wants to build an army. He doesn’t know how  _ dangerous—”  _ He takes a breath, shakes his head. “But whatever. Let him do what he wants. It’ll come back to bite him eventually. Especially because he’s involving the church, now.”

“He’s motherfucking  _ what?”  _ Gamzee asks, jerking forward in alarm, ears pinning. “Our church, motherfucker? The fuck is he doing?”

“He’s not getting enough healthy highbloods from immigration,” Sollux admits, hunching his shoulders. “So he wanted to hack a ship of fresh adults and reroute it to Earth. Of course, the only fresh adult highbloods in space are the ones being transported to the church’s flagship for initiation. There are always a fleet of them every sweep—ten or twelve ships at a time, almost a hundred highbloods on each one. Noir decided it would be a good idea to take one and ship it to another of the gang’s bases, out in New Mexico. The church won’t miss that many fresh adults, right? They’ll pass it off as a glitch, a navigational error. They won’t come looking.”

Gamzee tosses his head back and laughs, but the sound is sharp and grating, not happy at all. His smile reminds you of hunting, of tearing flesh from bone. “Oh, the motherfuckin’ joke’s on him! He ain’t got a clue how family works. Might be they wouldn’t care if it was wigglers they were losing, but adults? And near about full members of the church, too? They’ll care, little brother.  _ They will fucking care.” _

“Exactly what I told him,” Sollux agrees adamantly, although he shrinks down some. He looks unnerved by Gamzee’s smile—which is fair. It’s fucking creepy when he’s in this mood. “What’s more, how the  _ fuck  _ is he going to control a bunch of waylaid highblood cultists? I mean, they’ll have military-grade psi inhibitors onboard, but—fuck, you gotta get ‘em  _ on  _ before they’ll do any good, and a purpleblood’s not just gonna lie down and let you cripple their ‘voodoos. He was—” Sollux glances at his fingers, wincing. “Insistent, though.”

“Oh my god.” You lean forward, your eyes wide. “Sollux, you didn’t.”

“Well, I didn’t  _ want  _ to,” he snaps. “But he knew I’d hacked an imperial ship before, when I helped you guys, and he had my fucking fingers broken, and then he—he threatened Aradia.” His lips pull back, flashing his wicked teeth. The scent of ozone stings the air. “I couldn’t let him hurt her. I’d do anything to keep that from happening, KK.  _ Anything.” _

“Oooh, fuck.” You bury your face in your hands. You can’t blame him for that. You know just how he feels—you’d do the same thing for your moirail. “Fuck. But they’re not coming here?”

“No. He knew that would be too dangerous, at least.” Sollux laughs bitterly. “Fucking dumbass. He’ll see what good it does him.”

Beside you, Gamzee is very, very still. You set a hand on his shoulder and he glances in your direction. There’s a crooked grin on his face. “What?” you ask, tapping his temple. “What are you thinking inside of that thick skull, huh?”

“I’m thinking that the church is going to rain down motherfucking justice on Noir. On Nuodel.” His eyes burn. Your stomach twists anxiously. “And I’m thinking I’m glad I’m going to be here when they motherfucking  _ do.” _

You rest your palm on his cheek and he closes his burning eyes, leans into your touch. “Yeah, well. Let’s not get our hopes too high. If they never bring the highbloods here, the church won’t come here, either. Besides, if they  _ did,  _ we’d be out a home all over again.”

Gamzee sighs softly. “...yeah. I guess that’s right.”

“Anyway—” You yawn, your jaw cracking, then shake your head again. Your skull feels like it’s stuffed full of cobwebs. “I’m too tired for this shit. Can we postpone the languishing in our misery until, like, tomorrow?”

“Oh, shit yeah, bro. You must be exhausted—here.” Gamzee rolls up the cold compress, which had all but numbed your back and shoulders, and replaces it with the blanket. “Sollux, would you mind coming back tomorrow night? We’d be more than happy to see you, but brother’s gotta be gettin’ his rest on now.”

“No, that’s fine.” Sollux stands up, stretching himself out. “Take care of yourselves, yeah? I assume you’re not going to be training tomorrow evening, GZ?”

“Fuck no. I’m gonna stay with this stubborn little fucker ‘till he’s better.”

“Awesome—so I’ll see you both in a few hours.” Sollux drifts towards your door, waving back at you. “Have a good day.”

You mumble something affirmative, burrowing into your pillows. Shit, you feel pretty good, right now. Stressed as all shit because  _ what the fuck Noir purplebloods are not mercenaries  _ but like—your wound has been reduced to a mild sore spot, you’re warm and safe, and your palemate is close by. He flicks on the white light and then curls up around you, letting you rest your head on his stomach, where you can hear the soft gurgle of his insides. 

“Morning, Gamzee,” you mumble into his stomach, wrapping your good arm around his leg. “Pale for you. So much. So pale.”

Gamzee hums happily at you, fingers scratching absently at the back of your neck. “I’m so very motherfucking pale for you too, littlest brother. Have a good day. I’ll be here in the evening.”

And so, with that assurance and the gentle, lulling movement of your moirail’s breathing, you sleep.


	24. the holiest parts of you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: violence, pretty major gore/body horror, self-harm, hallucinations, withdrawals, intrusive thoughts
> 
> chapter track: "putting the dog to sleep" by the antlers

Your little brother heals slowly from the grievous wound that mad sister of yours struck him. You clean it for him often as you can, make sure he takes his meds and drinks water and Gatorade in equal measure. Keep his bandages fresh, make sure he rests, ice the wound every few hours, help him down to the clinic for a visit with the medics every couple of days. After all that, there’s not much you can do but watch and wait as he knits himself back together. It is a long and agonizing process, and you do hate to see him in such pain. 

Worse than the physical wound, though, is the wound what’s been dealt to his conscience. Most trolls have killed another by the time they’re adults, but Karkat is still so young yet, and he does feel so strongly. He makes himself fucking miserable, thinking on what happened, though you croon and pet and joke and try to keep him from dwelling on it. He didn’t do anything that didn’t have to be done. Self-defense only, and you tell him so. 

You think, eventually, he builds a wall around that hurting part of himself, too. There’s a kind of hollowness in his eyes now. Your chest hurts when you look on him. 

Nuodel gives you a week to stay with him all you can, nursing him back to health, as is a moirail’s Messiahs-given duty. After that she pulls you back to her training, though she lets you stay on your sopor so you can return to him each morning and check after his wellbeing. She gives you antibiotics, too, what drive away the constant itch in your lungs. While you’re away, your friends agree to watch over him for you.  Sollux, Nepeta, and Equius all nurse him as best they can, despite his gripin’, and you warm that much further to them. Fuck, but you’re so goddamn grateful for your friends. They keep his wounds cleaned (well, Sollux does that, mostly, bein’ as Karkat’s wounds are in that mighty unusual color of his), they hassle him to eat and sleep, and they keep a close guard so no other trolls try to hurt him while he’s so weak still. 

John asks after him quite a bit, too. Karkat’s not been as talkative or snippy, bein’ as he spends most of his time sleeping or half-high on pain medication, and your little human brother has up and taken notice. You tell him Karkat got hisself hurt in a fight, but you tell him no more than that, and he doesn’t push. Talking to him seems to cheer Karkat up, though, for which you are most motherfucking grateful. 

Two weeks after his injury, though, Nuodel is back to pushing you to leave the sopor. You knew she would be. You think about telling her no—think about showing her teeth and snarling, think about taking Karkat and getting the fuck out, but that wouldn’t do you any good. It would only get your Karkat killed. You know she can kill him. You know she  _ will  _ kill him, and you'd be too weak to stop her . 

So you drop your ears, keep your teeth covered, and tell her yes. 

“Be good, okay?” Karkat presses the warm pads of his fingers to your jaw, smooths them along your cheek. He’s got a sad, weary look in his eyes, and you do hate to leave him like this. Hate it something fierce. “I know you can do it. And if it gets to be too much,  _ tell me,  _ okay? I’ll come see you as soon as I can.”

“I’ll look forward to seeing you, brother,” you tell him. Kiss his palm, nuzzle into his wrist. “I’ll be on the best motherfuckin’ behavior you’ve ever  _ seen.  _ And I’ll troll you every day, okay? Just a couple of weeks and I’ll be right back here, takin’ care at you the way I should.”

“Just a couple weeks,” Karkat agrees, cupping your cheek. He leans forward, nuzzles his nose against yours. You breathe deep. Warm spice—safety, home. “Pale for you, you wreck.”

You smile at him. Most motherfucking miraculous words, those. “Pale for you too, best friend. Make sure you take your medicine if you get to hurting, alright? And drink lots of water, don’t tax yourself overmuch—Sollux and Nepeta and Equius are here whenever you need them, got it? You gotta eat, too. I know you ain’t hungry, but you ain’t gonna heal if you don’t—and the vitamins don’t count as a meal, either. You—”

Karkat laughs—actually laughs!—and pushes you back, shaking his head. “Oh, fuck off with you. You’re such a lusus sometimes, seriously. I  _ know.  _ I’ll be fine, promise. Stitches’ll be gone when you come back, even.”

You butt your head into his hands, cup his wrists and kiss each tiny finger. “I look forward to seeing you whole once again, best beloved.” 

“Mm, me too.” He reaches forward, slides his claws beneath the thin chain around your neck. Pulls your locket out from under your shirt, cradles it in his palm and presses a kiss to the smooth surface. “Take care of yourself too, got it? I’ll be pissed if you don’t.”

“You got it.” You press one final kiss to his forehead, then reluctantly unfold yourself, rise to your feet and look down at him—at him, at your whole world, curled up in the safety of your pile. He pats your foot fondly. 

“Bye, Gamzee. See you in a few days.”

“Goodbye, love.” You hesitate—your whole self wants nothing more to stay here with him, where it’s safe and warm and okay—before taking a deep breath and turning away. “Be seeing you.”

And with that, you leave your palemate. 

You meet Nuodel in the training rooms, and from there she leads you to her block. It’s on the first floor, tucked in a far corner of the building, and it ain’t small. There’s a large ‘coon near the back, though it’s been scoured clean of sopor. It smells clean—like greasepaint and artificial lemon, and like Nuodel, sickly-sweet. There’s a wide, soft square near the wall  _ (a mattress,  _ the English-speaking part of your mind supplies helpfully) with a pile of purple blankets on top of it.

“Make yourself at home, Makara,” Nuodel says, crashing down onto the large couch beside her ‘coon. “We gotta have a talk.”

You grimace. You’re beginning to dread  _ talks,  _ all things be told. You take a seat on the mattress, keeping your shoes on the floor as Karkat insists is proper. “About what, sister?”

“Lots of things.” She leans back, shows you her whole stomach without a hint of fear, and instead of inciting you, it shames you. How comes she to be so confident in your presence? How weak must she think you? (And she’s right. You know she’s right. You are nothing if not weak. You can’t even defend your palemate from her and she knows it.) “But the first thing I wanna know is about your palemate. I wanna know how in  _ the fuck  _ you knew he was hurt.”

You flick your ears hesitantly, confused. “How I knew? Well fuck, sister, he was bleedin’ all over the motherfuckin’ place—certainly wasn’t anybody else’s blood—”

“No, no.” She flaps a hand at you. “Before you saw him. We were two floors apart from him, and not a single sign that something was wrong when you took off like a hare out of hell. So what was it? And don’t tell me you got  _ a feeling.  _ That’s wiggler romance bullshit.”

“Well fuck, sister, he screamed.” You grimace a little, remembering the sound of it—like claws in your head, shredding through you, all  _ painfearstopHURTS.  _ “That was clue enough that something was wrong, I think.”

Nuodel frowns at you, folding her arms across her chest, and you shrink down. “Might be that he screamed, but I don’t know how you heard him. Did you miss the part where we were two floors away? And what’s more, the inquisition rooms are soundproofed  _ specifically  _ to prevent screams from botherin’ anybody else. So how in the fuck did you manage to hear him? I sure as fuck didn’t. Nobody else in that fuckin’ room did.”

“Fuck, I don’t know, sister.” You wrap your arms around yourself. “He’s my palemate.”

“That doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. A troll shouldn’t have been able to hear him screaming unless they were right outside the door. You know what I think?”

You glance up at her. “What?”

“I think you went and did a piece of work on your little palemate, Makara. Might be you forged a fear-link between the two of you and you felt his fear like you feel your own—must’ve been a mighty strong fear, to get through all that goddamned sopor, though. Maybe that’s why you haven’t felt it before.”

Your mouth is suddenly very, very dry. “I—what.”

“You went and linked your fear with his, dumbass. It’s a fucking stupid thing to do—doubt you even knew what you were doing, though.” She snorts. “That’s what you get for ignoring your ‘voodoos. You don’t even know what the hell they’re up to, when they got the energy to get the hell up to anything. You need to learn to control them, not wall them off, or shit like  _ this  _ happens. No wonder your palemate’s such an anxious mess all the time. He’s feelin’ fear enough for the both of you.”

You are. Wow. You are not following right now. Your thoughts feel thicker than usual. Heavier. You did  _ motherfucking what  _ to your palemate?

“Aw, don’t feel too guilty. You didn’t have any idea what you were doin’. Hard to blame a dumbass like you, and you were probably just tryin’ to protect him, keep in tune with when he was scared. Noble. Fucking stupid, but noble. We gotta get rid of that link before your ‘voodoos get back to their full strength, or that poor fucker’ll be crippled.”

“I—Karkat. I hurt Karkat.”

“Nah, you just rattled him up a little bit.” She scratches her chin. “For a—well, maybe quite a while. How long you been together?”

You met. You met online, when you were—fuck, when you were barely two sweeps old, just learned enough in your runes to talk at other fuckers online. You’ve been pale at him for as long as you can remember, though you didn’t get your notice on of it real good until you were almost five and a half. Met him for the first time shortly after that, and didn’t ever look back.

“A sweep,” you say, your voice ragged. “Almost a sweep. You’re tellin’ me—you’re tellin’ me I’ve been hurting Karkat for almost a sweep, sister? Almost a full motherfucking sweep I’ve laid torment to him?”

“Come on, now. That’s a tad melodramatic. It’s not  _ torment.  _ You let him feel your fear, and you would’ve felt his, if you didn’t have so much sopor crammed up here.” She taps her temple. “Ain’t like you laid him a fatal wound.”

You stumble onto your feet, swaying slightly. You gotta go to Karkat. You gotta fix this.  _ Fuck,  _ you gotta fix him. He’s been so scared, so scared all the time, and it was  _ your fault. _ You feel sick. Holy shit what have you done. Holy shit,  _ fuck, motherfucker what have you done— _

“Hey, easy there.” Nuodel rises to her feet in one smooth motion, looming over you. “You don’t need to go anywhere. I’ll fix it for you. It’s not like you’re capable of doin’ it, anyway. You’ve got about as much control over your ‘voodoos as you do over the sea.”

“Fix it,” you plead, suddenly desperate. Your Karkat, you hurt your Karkat, it’s  _ you  _ who’s scared him so, scared him into thinking he needs to shudder away from the peace you offer him, needs to fight just to prove he’s strong enough to. “Fix it, you gotta fix it, fuck, please,  _ please—” _

“That’s the plan, wiggler. Sit your ass down and chill the fuck out. It won’t take long unless you fight me about it.” She slouches on the couch again, and you lower yourself stiffly to the mattress. “Gonna fuck around in your head, if I can get through all that sopor. Don’t wall me out, if you’re even capable of it.”

You nod earnestly—anything. Anything to get rid of what you’ve done, anything to help Karkat. You can’t believe what you’ve done. You can’t stand the thought of it. Your stomach feels like a mass of writhing knots, but you force yourself to sit back and take a deep breath, wrapping your fingers around your locket. Nuodel slides into your mind, and you itch to block her out—to protect yourself, your most vulnerable parts. She’s dark and cold and terrible, and alien enough to make you want to panic, but for love of Karkat—

For love of Karkat, you yield.

_ Here,  _ she whispers in your head, the tendrils of her mind coiling around a stiff, unyielding part of yours.  _ Here was one. A fear-link. It’s at least a sweep old, though; naught more than a scar now. This wouldn’t have done it.  _

You feel her shift again—feel the freezing, sticky, rotting trail she leaves in your thoughts. Violent shivers race down your spine, your most primitive self howling at you to slam her out, to keep your mind safe and unsullied. You ignore it. Simmer down the weak prickle of your own ‘voodoos so she can move more easily, picking carelessly through the holiest parts of you. And then she brushes up against something that makes you stiffen all over, an unconscious growl rising in your chest.

_ The fuck is this?  _ she asks. Your mind shifts nervously around her—that little piece of it throbs like a heartbeat. It’s been resting, calm and quiet and unused, but at her touch it unfurls. It reaches for her, hungry for—for connection. It wants to connect.  _ connectunderstandflowfeel— _

_Don’t touch that! It’s_ mine! You jerk away from Nuodel, slamming the walls of your mind up and enfolding that hungry piece of your mind within yourself. It latches onto you, instead, and for a moment your world shifts. Colors become more muted, your mind feels quiet and tired and unbearably _sad._ You cradle that piece of yourself, try to pour as much warmth and safety into it as you can, and it responds with a lazy sort of contentment before folding back into itself. 

(Your name is Karkat Vantas, and—huh. You suddenly feel a whole lot better than you just did. How strange.)

“What the  _ fuck  _ was that?” Nuodel demands, pinning her ears. 

“I have,” you say, breathing hard and rubbing your aching shoulder,  _ “no  _ motherfucking idea, sister.”

“Well, whatever the fuck it is, we need to get rid of it. Let me back in and  _ don’t  _ push me away this time, and maybe I can—”

You recoil at the thought, shaking your head adamantly. “No. No motherfucking way. It’s mine and I’m going to damn well keep it.”

“That’s not yours,” Nuodel says, her voice cold and wary. “That’s something else. That’s some _ one  _ else. Subjugglators deal in fear and fear only, and that was not fear. That was—”

_ “Mine,”  _ you hiss, curling your hands defensively in front of your chest. “It’s mine, is what it is, sister, and I’ll not have you take it from me. It hasn’t done any harm, has it? So there’s no harm in keeping it. Fuck, I never even noticed it until you went poking around and woke it the fuck up. If I just leave it well enough alone, it’ll be fine.”

Nuodel looks at you, her eyes unreadable and her scent sharp with her irritation. “Fine,” she says, after a moment. “But the second it starts controlling you, Makara, I’ll rip it out of your head and leave a fucking hole where it was. Do you understand? And if I let you keep it, you  _ tell me  _ if weird shit starts happening.”

“You have my motherfucking word,” you assure her, relief flooding your chest. Thank Messiahs. You don’t know what that little piece of your mind is, but you know you sure as hell don’t want to live without it. You’re certain it ain’t gonna hurt you, either—there’s not the faintest malevolence to it, especially when it (apparently) spends most of its time dormant. 

“Well, whatever it was probably clued you into your palemate when he was hurt.” She sighs heavily, leaning back against the couch. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t work the other way around, because you don’t want him feelin’ whatever the fuck you’re about to feel.”

You frown some, thinking on that—but you won’t let it happen. You can keep yourself walled off, if you need to, and you’re fair certain that the thing in your head won’t stir itself until you pester it. “I got it under control, big sister. Don’t you worry about a motherfuckin’ thing.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, sure. That’s real comforting, wiggler. Now, then—let’s talk about withdrawals.”

So you talk about withdrawals. She tells at you what you’re probably gonna feel and how she’s gonna deal with it, but that sure as fuck does not prepare you for the next few nights. The first night you’re feelin’ pretty okay—a little grouchy, near the end, but nothin’ you’ve not felt before. You spend the first part of it training with Nuodel (and you see your best friend in the kitchen at lunchtime, too, so you get to cuddle him a little bit!) and the later part of it chillin’ in her block, trolling your friends. 

The second night is a little worse, but you ain’t really  _ ill  _ with it ‘till the end. You train again, the first few hours, though you gotta skip lunch—your appetite has up and abandoned you, as Nuodel promised it would. You also get a fierce fuckin’ headache, ‘round about morningtime, and you can’t  _ fucking  _ get to sleep. You spend most of the day wallowing around on Nuodel’s couch as she snoozes on the mattress, alternating between  _ too hot  _ and  _ too cold  _ and getting all the more irritated because of it. 

“Fuck, you are leaking all  _ over _ the place,” Nuodel complains when she wakes up, rubbing her forehead. “Don’t you have even a little bit of control over those ‘voodoos of yours?”

You growl at her and she laughs. You are in a most un-fucking-funny mood this evening, and you know it’s only going to get worse. You wish Karkat were here. You wish that more than anything, but you dread to know what you might do to him. You don’t feel  _ mad,  _ though, not like you thought you might. You’re grouchy, but you also just kinda feel sick and sad and tired. You miss your friends. 

“Here.” Nuodel pulls out two thin silver rings with a thin purple band running around the center. “Psi inhibitors. They’ll keep the worst of that noise in your pan down until you learn to control them. Let me see your horns.”

You flatten your ears but duck your head, letting her fit a ring around the base of each horn. You hate the way her fingers feel, cold and unfamiliar, near your vulnerable hornbed—but you do slump in relief once she turns the inhibitors on. Some of the sick, dark fear curdling in your head dies back, and you sigh. Mm. It’s not as good as sopor (you can steal hear the soft whispers in the back of your head, growing louder by the hour) but it  _ is  _ soothing to know that, at the very least, you can’t cripple anyone with your ‘voodoos—even if you want to.

She doesn’t make you train that night, and grateful are you for it. You spend most of the night curled up next to her toilet, retching up sour bile and shaking and shaking and  _ shaking.  _ Your body aches like a motherfucker, your throat feels scratchy and sore, and your stomach cramps painfully. There are ants crawling over your skin. There are  _ so many ants.  _

You want the sopor. You want it you want it you want it  _ you need it YOU NEED IT. _

Your mind becomes a hissing, dark place. There are images behind your eyes—images of slaughtered trolls, goblets of blood in all shades, smears of carnage, shattered bone and broken horn and glory so much glory so much MOTHERFUCKING GLORY. Your claws rend Nuodel’s couch to ribbons, and she hisses and spits and cuffs you sharply over the horns. 

Every little once and awhile, when you can breathe through the bloodshowers in your mind, you curl up into a ball and sob. You want Karkat. You want Karkat you want your palemate want your peace your safety your home you WANT YOUR KARKAT RIGHT MOTHERFUCKING NOW. 

Then you get to thinking about what you want with him right motherfucking now. You think about breaking his tiny, fragile fingers. You think about bleeding him out—bleeding that pretty shade just for you, for you and NO FUCKING OTHER. You think about curling his guts around your wrists, stringing them up like holy lights, holding his heart in your hands. You think about carving your name into his skin because he belongs to you, because he’s yours, HE’S MOTHERFUCKING YOURS. 

And then, as punishment for thinking such awful, sinful thoughts, you set claws to your own flesh. Nuodel catches you before you go to far—pins you down and snarls hard at you, until you break down sobbing again, curl into yourself and you don’t ever want Karkat around you when you’re like this, not ever, not never motherfucking ever. He would hate you, you think. Once he saw you for what you really are, he would hate you. 

You think maybe he should. You wouldn’t blame him.

Your blood smears Nuodel’s carpet, your skin. Holy. Most righteous, most holy of shades, deep and vibrant purple. You ain’t ever seen such a beautiful thing. You lick it out from under your claws in a rare moment of quiet, and Nuodel watches you wearily. “You’re a piece of work, Makara,” she tells you. “Fucking hell.”

You go off again in the next few minutes, throwing yourself at the monsters that lurk in the shadows. Your chest aches with the force of your snarls. Your horns throb, your teeth sting with the want to bitetearmaimMAULSHREDRIP _ KILL.  _ You’re sure you attack Nuodel more than once, but she’s bigger and stronger and to her credit, she can hold her own against a wiggler like you. 

When she needs to sleep, she lashes your wrists together with heavy rope and ties you to the toilet. You work on gnawing your way through the ropes most of the day, but only get halfway through. When she sees, she kinda sighs at you, low and tired, and you hiss at her. How dare she. HOW DARE SHE BIND YOU HERE. You, Messiahs’ holy work. YOU, MOST BLESSED AND RIGHTEOUS MOTHERFUCKING MONSTER. 

You curse her out as best you can, shout your motherfuckin’ lungs off to keep her awake that day because if you can’t sleep, WHY SHOULD SHE? 

You think maybe she knocks you out at one point, because you wake up dizzy and weak with blood in your hair. Everything is—quiet. You push yourself up warily, leaning back against the toilet, waiting for the voices, waiting for the  _ rage.  _ It seems to have worn itself the fuck out, though. All you feel is a little prickle of irritation, a little whisper in the back of your pan. You know it can whip itself back up again at the faintest of provocations, but for now, it’s under control. Your stomach growls. 

When Nuodel wakes up (to your shouting), you look balefully at her. “I’m motherfucking  _ hungry.” _

“Oh thank the fucking Messiahs.” She rests an arm over her eyes, groaning, then decaptachologues a packet of crackers and flings it towards you. You tear into it, shred the plastic with your teeth and wolf it down without breathing. It leaves your mouth feeling dry, salty. You lick your teeth. 

“More,” you demand. You are fucking  _ starved.  _ You’re not sure how many nights it’s been, and you don’t give half a motherfucking shit. Your stomach is a savage, empty animal demanding to be filled. Nuodel tosses you a few more packets of crackers, and dried fruit, and a bag of jerky, and you gulp them all down as quickly as you can. Choke yourself more than once, and she growls irritably at you but doesn’t tell you to slow down. 

“So,” she says, once you’ve finished. “Are you feeling well enough to do some actual training?”

You glower at her. Your whole body is a throb of pain and low, simmering anger, and training is the fucking  _ last  _ thing you want to do. But—“If I say yes, can I see Karkat?”

“Tell you what,” she says, sitting up, “if you can make it through a few hours of training and get yourself cleaned up without flying off the motherfucking handle, you can see Karkat this morning. I’ll even give you your phone back.”

You nod. Best that you make sure you have a hold on yourself before you dare bring your palemate close again. Nuodel’s presence, in this case, is comforting. At least you can’t damage Karkat with her here to stop you. So you hold still, let her cut the ropes off of you, and scrub the blood from your skin in her ablutions trap. She helps you bandage your wounds (long, thin gouges across your ribs and stomach, and fuck, you don’t know how you’re going to explain that to Karkat) and then motions for you to take a seat on the mattress. It smells like her. Everything smells like her, here. It makes your teeth ache.

“Now,” she says. “First things first. You need to learn to control this.” She taps her temples. “It is leaking out of your motherfucking  _ ears,  _ wiggler. Put your walls up.”

And you try. You do. You slam your walls up as hard as you can, pull your fear back into yourself and hold it there—a cold, dark knot in your chest. It writhes against you, unwilling to be kept within you any longer than it has to be. You practice for hours, with Nuodel’s rough commands in your ear, but even so—as soon as you lose your concentration, your ‘voodoos are leaking all over the motherfucking place again. It’s only the psi inhibitors that keep them bearable, and you realize, with a sort of sick despair, that you—

You can never have this, with Karkat. Other subjugglators are capable of being around their moirails, despite their rages and ‘voodoos, but you—you have broken your mind on sweeps of sopor. So long as you live, you will never be able to have both freedom from sopor  _ and  _ Karkat. Those two things are irrevocably tied up in each other. Sopor and Karkat must come hand-in-hand. It’s a crushing blow, for you, who always hoped one day your palemate alone would be enough. You wanted your palemate to be enough. You wanted  _ so badly  _ for him to be enough, but he never will be.

He never will be, and it’s  _ all your fucking FAULT.  _


	25. an ocean of a troll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: withdrawals, iffy consent where psychics are concerned
> 
> chapter track: “in the absence of everything, i promise to keep you warm” by flatsound

Two nights after Gamzee leaves, a small rustblood summons you down to the first floor. She refuses to answer any of your questions, much to your chagrin, and only informs you brusquely that she’s under orders from Noir, so unless you’d like to take it up with  _ him,  _ you’d best shut your mouth and follow her. She escorts you to a block just down the hall from Sollux’s and knocks gently on the door. 

“Come in,” a voice calls, and the rustblood ushers you into the block. There, sprawled out in an armchair, is a scrawny troll in a black jacket. She’s cerulean, if the color of her lipstick and mascara is anything to go by. Her irises (the one that you can see, anyhow—her left eye is shielded by a dark lens in her glasses) are solid gray, so she’s nowhere close to being an adult. That soothes you some, although you have no  _ fucking  _ idea what a cerulean wiggler could possibly want from you. 

“Oh, well hello, there—you must Noir’s newest pet,” the cerulean says, her ears pricking up at you. “Welcome, welcome. Sit down. And you—” She wrinkles her nose at the rustblood. “You can go. Well done and shit.”

The rust absconds without another word, and you gingerly take a seat on the couch across from the cerulean. Your back and shoulder still ache like a  _ bitch,  _ but at least you can move without cracking your scabs and bleeding all over the fucking place. You can’t wait to get these fucking  _ stitches  _ out. “Listen,” you start, and the cerulean swivels an ear in your direction. “I don’t know what the fuck you want, but I’m not in the mood to sit around for longer than I have to, so let’s get to it.”

“Straight to the point—I like that, although you could use a little subtlety.” She leans forward, offering you her hand in a disgusting mimicry of human nicety. Her fingers are made of bright, polished metal. You ignore the hand, and she sighs and sits back again. “You’re pretty upfront, for a lowblood. Although—” She flashes you a bright grin, canines like yellow daggers in her gray gums. “You’re not a lowblood, are you?”

Your stomach drops, and your mind immediately darts to all the ways you can kill her and still escape this block. Your sickle? But she would notice the scent of your sylladex in the few seconds it would take you to decaptchalogue it—your claws would be quicker. You’re under no delusions that you could outfight someone this much higher than you on the spectrum, though, not easily. The mad purpleblood was a lucky (and low) blow. Your luck won’t hold here, you can feel it. Maybe if you—

“Hey, settle down, settle down.” She slumps back in her chair, keeps herself open and lazy and unconcerned. “Your nasty little secret’s safe with me, mutie. I’m not gonna cull you, whether you deserve it or not. I’ve got a job to do, here, and unfortunately, that includes keeping you alive.”

“What the fuck do you want?” you ask, your voice a warped hiss. Your claws dig into her couch, your heart tripping over itself. At the rate your nasty little  _ secret  _ keeps spreading, the whole fucking Earth is going to know within the year. “Who the fuck told you?”

“Noir did.”

Well. Well, that’s better than Sollux telling her. Something in you relaxes a little bit, hearing that, although you’re still  _ fucking pissed.  _

“And that’s why I’m here. See, you’re an anomaly, little Karkat Vantas. Who the fuck  _ knows  _ what you can do?” She reaches off to the side, scoops up a manila folder and opens it, pulling out a sheaf of papers. “You don’t fit into a caste, so whatever abilities you have are unprecedented.”

“I don’t have any—”

“I know, I know. Jeez, you’re a mouthy fucker, huh?” She offers you a paper and you take it—it’s a chart of your medical stats from your first checkup here. “You don’t have any psychic abilities that we  _ know  _ of, because you’re not part of any caste that we  _ know  _ of. Hell, and maybe you’re right. Maybe you really do have no abilities—maybe your mutation stripped you of that, too, you poor fucking cullbait.”

“So you’re here to—what?” you ask, suspicion growing in your mind. “Check and make sure that I  _ don’t  _ have any abilities? Because if I  _ did  _ have any, I think I would know about them by now. I’m nearly seven sweeps old. Psychic powers don’t exactly lay dormant for that long, so thanks for your concern, but this was a grand waste of your time  _ and  _ mine.”

She taps a finely-manicured claw on the paper. “Maybe, maybe not. But see, the thing is—your medical stats, except for your temperature, fall  _ right  _ between a yellowblood’s and an oliveblood’s. There used to be a caste like that, you know. You ever heard of a limeblood, Vantas?”

You snort, shoving the papers back at her. “Yeah. They were killed off centuries ago, so I can assure you that there was no limeblood slurry in whatever the fuck batch produced  _ this."  _ You gesture at yourself, sneering.

“I know,” the cerulean admits, scratching her chin. “That’s what bothers me about you. You sure as fuck didn’t come from limeblood slurry, and I doubt a crossblood blend could produce a lime or we’d see a fuck-ton more of them. So maybe you  _ are  _ just a mutated oliveblood or a mutated yellowblood. If you’re an olive, you’re probably right and you don’t have anything to be concerned about. If you’re a yellow, though—well, we gotta see if you inherited their powers, too. Noir doesn’t like to deal in  _ maybes.”  _

You roll your eyes, thinking about Sollux’s flashing sparks and the sharp scent of ozone. “Yeah, well, I can tell you I am  _ definitely  _ not a yellowblood psychic. But fine—” You spread your arms, wincing at the slice of pain through your shoulder. “Whatever. If it gets me out of here faster, I’ll prove it to you however I can.”

“Atta boy.” She grins at you, her eye gleaming. “Not that you had a choice, of course. Noir dragged me all the way from New Hampshire for this. Now, all you have to do is sit still. I’m gonna poke around in that funny little brain of yours, and we’ll see if it’s you who’s been playing games with Makara’s mind, huh?”

You stiffen as the words register—Makara?  _ Your  _ Makara? What the fuck does she—

And then, before you can ask, there’s a heavy, cold monster barreling its way into your head. There’s no quiet finesse or politeness to it at all. It rakes its way past your meager defenses, tears through your thoughts and leaves you stumbling and sick with the  _ tastefeelsound  _ of it. You gasp and retreat back into yourself as quickly as you can, curling your most precious parts into a tight ball, slamming up your defenses and cowering behind them. 

You can still  _ feel  _ her, though. You can feel her out there, in your mind, tearing things apart and sliding them lazily back together. It feels like claws, like legs and eyes, like teeth and poison and  _ spiders.  _ You think that high-pitched, panicked whine must be coming from you—you force your body to move, clamp your hands over your ears. She’s so  _ loud.  _ L oud and unyielding and  _ awful.  _

So you think of the one thing that always keeps you safe. You squeeze your eyes shut, keep your walls held high to keep her away from your softest thoughts, and you think of him. You think of cool skin and lanky limbs, of too-big, stained fangs and cheesy smiles. You think of dimples and crinkled paint, soft gray eyes and scribbled-on sneakers, the smell of paint and sopor and storms. You don’t know how long you huddle there, trapped in your own mind as she ravages your memories and outermost defenses. When you realize she’s drawn back, you feel sick and sore all over. Your head hurts like a motherfucking  _ bitch _ .

You take a deep breath, steeling yourself, and then force your eyes open. “What—the— _ fuck?”  _ you hiss, your voice a weak rasp. 

“All done,” the cerulean says, grinning at you. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“It was fucking  _ horrible,  _ you bitch,” you snarl, clutching your head. “Oh my  _ god.  _ You’re one to talk about  _ subtlety.  _ I feel like you shoved a wrecking ball through my fucking skull,  _ fuck.”  _

She laughs, flashing her fangs. “Well, at the very least, you should be pleased to know you were right.” She sounds disappointed about that fact, fuck her. “You definitely don’t have a yellowblood’s abilities. You don’t have any other abilities, either. Your defenses are thicker than normal—I couldn’t even get at your soft spots, and I’m  _ pretty damn  _ good at getting into trolls’ heads, so consider that a compliment. You’re all scarred to hell, but I guess that’s what you get for quadranting with a fearmonger, huh?”

Fearmonger. Your fearmonger. “Gamzee—Makara, what the fuck did you mean?” you demand. “What you said about me playing games with his mind?”

“Oh, that.” She studies her claws dismissively and you bristle—this is  _ your palemate  _ you’re talking about. “Just something that was making Nuodel antsy. Nothing bad, but she’ll be glad to know it wasn’t you who fucked him over.”

“Fucked him over? The fuck does that mean?”

“You say fuck a lot, you know that?”

_ “Tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.” _

“Alright, alright.” She pins her ears, her scent (cobwebs and casinos) sharpening with irritation. “Pushy little bitch, aren’t you? There’s a little parasite in Makara’s mind—they’re trying to find out who put it there and what the fuck it does. You were their first suspicion, naturally.”

“A  _ parasite?  _ How the fuck—what—he never said anything about—”

“He didn’t know it was there, as far as I’ve heard. It’s not doing anything that they know of, but Nuodel doesn’t want to fuck around with it if she doesn’t have to. She wants to find out what it does, and then she wants to get rid of it. Little Makara wants to keep it, though.” She hums, rising to her feet and zipping up her jacket. “Anyway, I’m outta here. You can deal with your quadrant dramas on your own time. I’m not getting paid enough to help you out with relationship counseling. Later, freak.”

“Wait! You can’t—” You jump to your feet and then sway as a wave of dizziness crashes over you. You groan, sitting back down and putting your head between your knees. Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _ When you can look back up without your ears ringing, she’s gone. Goddamnit. You need to talk to Gamzee, but he won’t be back for another twelve days. This is so fucking  _ stupid. _

You stomp (well, as best you can stomp without agitating your wounds) back to your block, fuming. At least the worst of his withdrawals should be over soon, right? And then you can see him, and talk to him, and ask him what the  _ fuck  _ he’s doing with a psychic parasite. Actually, you could do that over Trollian—but you’d rather do it face-to-face. This doesn’t seem like something you can just  _ troll  _ about. 

Nepeta is in your block when you return, curled up next to your ‘coon and reading one of your shitty romance novels. She beams when she sees you, sitting upright and curling her tail around her feet. “Hi, Karkitty. I brought you lunch, and some fresh bandages, and Katie says to tell you they have you scheduled for an appointment tomorrow to get your stitches out, so—”

You pin your ears and bare your teeth and she shuts her mouth. You ignore the little spark of hurt in her eyes, the way she shrinks down a little bit. Ignore the guilt that twists in your chest because it doesn’t matter. You can’t give her what she wants, and there’s no point in getting her hopes up. 

Fuck, you wish you weren’t such a freak. (And such an asshole.)

You burrow into your pile, and Gamzee’s scent soothes you some, eases the aching in your head. Your eyes burn. “I want Gamzee,” you mumble.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Nepeta says. You hear her inch closer to the pile. “But think how happy you’ll be to see him again. Think how happy  _ he’ll  _ be.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

You don’t feel so certain, though. It’s another three days before Nuodel trolls you, tells you that you can come see your moirail in the morning. You’re there, at Nuodel’s block, the second light starts to spill across the horizon. You haven’t been able to troll Gamzee at all—Nuodel told you she took his phone so he wouldn’t break it or do anything stupid, and you hate to think about what kind of state he must be in to require that precaution. You knock loudly, and you shift your weight anxiously as you wait, scenting the air. It smells artificially clean—like lemons and chemicals, like something sticky-sweet. 

Nuodel opens the door, leaning against the frame and looking down at you from her stupid unnecessary height. “Hey there, wiggler. Your moirail’s in the ablutions block. Try not to rile him up, got it? He’s only just himself settled down, and fuck knows how long it’s gonna last.”

You nod earnestly, bolting past her once she steps aside. You find Gamzee in the ablutions block, as promised, hunched over next to the toilet and just about the most miserable sight you’ve ever seen. His skin is pale, his limbs shiver, and fear pulses in slow, unsteady waves across the block. A croon rises in your throat automatically, a deep, aching want to comfort him thundering in your chest. His head snaps up, eyes widening. 

“Karkat?” The fear in the block cuts off and you cross over to him as quickly as you can, dropping to your knees and winding your arms around his waist. He smells like cheap lemon soap and vomit. He hesitates, and then his arms come to settle around your back, his touch unbearably light against your wounds. “Hey—hey, best friend, hi. Fuck, how are you? How’ve you been?”

“Missed you,” you mumble—kiss his cheek, his ear, his jaw, taste his greasepaint. “Missed you so much, you giant disaster. I love you.  _ I love you.” _

He buries his face between your horns, laughing softly—it’s a wobbly, uncertain sound. “Motherfucker, I missed you too, so damn much— _ so  _ damn much, bro.” His voice is raw and worn. A flicker of fear dances across you, sets your heart pounding and your breath hitching, before it vanishes just as quickly. “Your hurts? How are they?”

“They’re fine,” you mumble into his throat, your hands roaming hungrily across his back, his sides, his shoulders, everywhere you can touch. “Stitches are already out and everything. What about you? How have you been? Are you sick?”

“Oh, fuck yeah, bro. Sickest motherfucker in the whole goddamn world, me,” he says, his voice a tiny, miserable thing. “Been throwin’ my guts up the last few days, all shaky and hot and then cold and I can’t  _ sleep  _ and it’s the most motherfuckin’ awful, unmirthful thing I think I’ve ever felt  _ ever.” _

You croon softly, sympathetically, and brush your fingers through his hair. “Fuck—I’m sorry, Gamzee. That sounds awful.” Your fingers brush against something strange, cool and metallic, wrapped around the base of one of his horns. “What’s this?”

The fear around you swells again before jerking back. “Fuck, sorry—tryin’ to keep from leakin’, I promise. That’s, uh—fuck, a psi inhibitor. Keeps the ‘voodoos from goin’ every which way and cripplin’ every motherfucker on base, ‘cause fuck knows I can’t keep ‘em under control.” His voice sounds bitter, unfamiliar. You hug him tighter. 

“That’s why you’re here,” you murmur against his ear. “To learn how to control them. I know you can do it, Gamzee.”

“Wouldn’t be so sure.” He hunches down, settles his face into the crook of your neck and then jerks back, scrubbing at his face. His paint is smeared to hell and back. “I done fucked up my pan with all that sopor, bro. Don’t know as it can ever be fixed. Maybe I’ll be like this forever, just—fuck, leaking fear everywhere I goddamn go,  _ fuck.” _

“Hey, shhh. That won’t happen. And even if it  _ did,  _ we’d figure something out. If you need stronger inhibitors, we’ll get them.”

“Yeah,” Gamzee murmurs. He sounds unbearably sad. Your heart aches, even as a wash of fear settles across you again, forcing it to hammer a panicked tempo in your chest. “Yeah, that’d be one way to do it. Inhibitors don’t control the anger, though, brother.”

You hunch your shoulders. He’s right. Inhibitors won’t soothe his rages, and you can’t, either. Shit. But still—“We’ll figure something out,” you insist. 

“Already did, bro.” He leans back, knocks his forehead against yours. “Sopor suits me just fine.”

“But I don’t want—”

“I know you don’t. Shh.” He settles his palm against your cheek, paps softly, and you lean hungrily into his touch. “Might be that we can figure something else out, but until then, I’ll just stay on the sopor when I’m not training. I won’t have it any other way, Karkat. It’s too dangerous.”

You bite your lip but nod. You don’t have a hope of arguing with him when he gets that stubborn tone in his voice, and you don’t have a good argument, anyway—but  _ fuck,  _ you wish you did. You wish there were another way.  _ Any  _ other way. What kind of a moirail are you, who has to keep his palemate drugged in order to keep him calm?

A fucking shitty one, that’s for sure.

“Hey, before I forget—” You touch his cheek, draw his attention back to you. Fear ebbs and flows like a wave. You feel vaguely nauseous with it, though you know Gamzee’s trying his best to keep it suppressed. “Somebody told me something. They mentioned something about a—a parasite, in your head? What’s—”

Gamzee’s ears flatten and he bares his teeth at the ablutions block door. “Did Nuodel tell you? That  _ bitch—” _

“Hey, hey, no, shh,  _ shhh.  _ It was somebody else—look, it doesn’t matter who told me, I want to hear it from  _ you.” _

“I was going to tell you,” he says, turning back to you—there’s an almost desperate gleam in his eyes. “I was, as soon as I got back to you. I wasn’t going to keep it secret from you, brother, I promise.”

“I know.” You didn’t know, not really. You cup his jaw in your hand, rub your thumb along his cheek. “I know. So tell me now.”

“There’s—there’s  _ something,  _ brother, something in my head. I don’t know what it is or who it’s from, but it ain’t bad. I never even noticed it ‘till Nuodel went and woke it up when she was checkin’ my ‘voodoos. It’s asleep most of the time, doesn’t do a damned thing unless I pester it.”

“At least not that you know of,” you correct gently. “What if it’s manipulating you and you don’t even know it? How would you know if it was changing how you felt, how you thought? Gamzee, it could be dangerous—”

“It’s  _ not.  _ I swear it’s not, bro, I can  _ feel  _ it. It doesn’t want anything from me, from anybody, it just wants to—to—” He flaps his hands, frustrated. “Fuck, it just wants to  _ connect.  _ Look, let me—let me show you. Please? If it does a single bit of harm I’ll tear it out of me myself, palebrother, I swear it, but give it a  _ chance.” _

He’s looking so earnestly at you, his eyes wide and glassy and fervent, that you have to glance away. His arms squeeze you—softly, just beneath your wound—and he presses his forehead to your cheek. Goddamnit. Goddamnit, you are so fucking whipped for this boy. “Ugh, okay,  _ fine.  _ I’ll give your freaky mind parasite a chance. But then you have to  _ listen  _ to me, okay? If it’s bad, then we need to get rid of it. I don’t want somebody controlling you like a—a puppet or something.”

“Deal,” Gamzee says immediately, offering you the first genuine grin you’ve seen from him tonight. “Here—I can’t pull you into me, that ain’t in my power, but maybe I can guide it out at you. All you gotta do is sit back and relax.”

You wince, remembering the  _ last  _ time you sat back and let somebody plunder your mind. You take a deep breath, preparing yourself for the noise and the pain and the terrible, awful humiliation of someone tearing carelessly through your thoughts and memories—but there’s none of that. Gamzee cradles your face in his hand, shooshing softly, and you feel something—shift. It’s a soft, insistent pull from one of your softest parts, one that you hid from that cerulean, one that you crave to  _ shieldprotectdefend,  _ but you—don’t. You don’t need to. This is Gamzee. He’s allowed there. You lean into his hand and chirp softly at him, let him do as he will. 

For just a second, the world around you—changes. Colors seem brighter, sharper. Your muscles ache, your stomach rolls. Your head feels heavier, your skin colder, your heartbeat slower. Fear curdles at the bases of your horns, slithers down your spine, and you shiver. And then, just as suddenly as it started, the feeling stops. Your world rights itself again and you shake your head. Blegh. 

Gamzee looks expectantly at you. “Well?” he asks, his voice hopeful. “How’s it feel?”

“Not great,” you admit, rubbing your temple. “It felt like—having the flu, or something. Gross. Is that how it makes you feel?”

He shakes his head, frowning. “No, it’s never done somethin’ like that. It feels sad, sometimes, and achy, but never sick.”

“Are you—are you serious? This thing makes you feel sad and achy and you think it’s your  _ friend?”  _

“Well, I didn’t say so much as  _ that.  _ I just said it didn’t hurt me, and it don’t.” Gamzee sets his jaw stubbornly and you groan. “How’s it feel now?”

“What do you mean, how’s it feel  _ now?  _ You took it back.”

Gamzee’s frown grows deeper. “I—no, I didn’t, palebrother. It’s connected right to you.”

Oh shit. Oh shit you’re probably being mind-controlled and you can’t even tell oh shit get it out get it out  _ get it out— _ “Get it out,” you hiss, trying desperately to slam your barriers up against a parasite you can’t even  _ feel.  _ You have no idea whether it works or not. 

“Alright, shh, alright. I’ve got you, best beloved.” Gamzee reaches forward, touches your cheek and closes his eyes. A little furrow of concentration flickers between his brows, and then your world is shifting again and you feel so fucking sick, ugh,  _ fuck.  _ Your head throbs. “There we go. All gone, brother, I’ve got it all gone from you now, shh, no fear,  _ shh.” _

“It’s gone?” you ask, squinting against the lights. Too bright. Too many colors. The colors are pissing you off. Fuck. “Fuck. I still feel like shit, you’ve got to be  _ kidding  _ me. I swear to god, if you’ve infected me with your shitty mental parasites—”

“Aw, shit.” Gamzee leans into your space, gathers you to him. Guilt thrashes in your chest—guilt and fear and a low, constant prickle of anger. Oh my god you feel so sick. “Shit, I’m sorry, little brother. I didn’t—I didn’t think it was going to hurt you, I was—fuck, I was so  _ sure—” _

“Get rid of it,” you gasp, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes to stop the constant throb in your head. “I want it gone. You have no idea what it’s doing.”

Gamzee hesitates, and disappointment surges in your chest—what the fuck.  _ What the fuck why are you disappointed.  _ “Okay,” he murmurs after a moment, rocking you slowly. “Okay, little brother. Just let me get through these next few days and as soon as I’m back on the sopor I’ll have Nuodel take it from me.”

“Thank you,” you mumble, resting an arm across your eyes. “Uuuugh. I hate psychic shit. I hate it so much.”

Gamzee hums softly, sympathetically, and the awful feelings in your body suddenly snap off with a flash of cold anger. You blink your eyes open and the colors of your world have righted themselves again. You relax. Thank  _ fuck.  _ You don’t know what that was but you never want it again, please and thank you. 

“Oh. Okay, I feel better now.” You straighten up, butting your head beneath Gamzee’s chin. “That was weird. Why does weird shit always happen to you?”

Gamzee laughs weakly. “Fuck if I know, bro. I—fuck, I’m sorry it hurt you. I really thought it wouldn’t.”

“‘s okay,” you say, patting his jaw. 

“No,” he says, his voice cracking. “No, it’s really motherfucking not.” Fear curls around you, black and violent, and you shudder. “I think—I think maybe you oughta go now, little brother.”

“Gamzee, hey, no—”

He peers down at you, his eyes burning orange. “Wasn’t a motherfucking request, Karkat. Get yourself back to our block.” He staggers onto his feet, hooking his hands beneath your arms and scooping you up. Sets you on your feet and pushes you towards the door, though you dig your heels in.

“Gamzee—” Every finely-tuned pale instinct you have is howling at you that now is exactly when you  _ shouldn’t  _ be leaving him, but—

But the wounds on your back remind you of your  _ failure. _

You squirm around in his grip, gaze up into his precious face. “Hey,” you say. He opens his mouth, flashes you his fangs, and you cradle his face in your grip. He growls helplessly at you. “Pale for you.”

His eyes soften some, his growl choking around a soft, miserable whine. He leans down and bumps his forehead against yours, and you trace your fingers along the tense line of his jaw. “Pale for you too, best beloved,” he whispers. “But you gotta go.”

You brush your palm against his cheek, curl your fingers behind his ear and pap him gently. He pushes greedily into your touch, squeezing his eyes shut. His growl rises and falls unsteadily, fear shifting around you like the tide. He’s an ocean of a troll, cradled carefully in the palm of your hand. You want to stay. You want to hold him through it, pet him as he snarls, cradle him until his rage eases. You want him  _ so badly. _

He reaches past you, opens the door, and shoves you out.

“Fuck, did you get him riled again?” Nuodel asks, scowling at you. “Goddamnit, wiggler. Get outta here. I’ll keep him from hurtin’ anybody.”

You duck your head, cheeks burning with shame. You can’t do this. You can’t do even this—even this, your most basic duty as a moirail. You listen as your palemate begins to snarl, and you—

You walk away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick note: i'll be starting classes this week, along with my part-time job, so there might be a liiiittle more time in between updates. i'm hoping to maintain a weekly update schedule, but if it's more like a week and a half or a couple of weeks, don't worry!! i havent forgotten, i'm just Suffering!


	26. parasite (a link)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: blood, injury, minor anxiety attack
> 
> chapter track: “parasites” by san fermin

The next week passes in a blur of sickness and rage and shitty training. Nuodel forces you to focus most of your time on trying to control your goddamned ‘voodoos, to no avail. You just keep  _ leaking,  _ like a motherfucking broken faucet, splashing fear everywhere you go. When she takes you to do a couple hours’ fighting in the training rooms, on your last day, all your purple brothers and sisters sneer at you. You know what they think. They think you’re a useless, broken-ass wiggler, and you know what? THEY ARE MOTHERFUCKING RIGHT.

She takes you to the chapel, after your fighting, and you cling to your locket and pray your heart out for messiahs to fix you. You pray one day you won’t need the sopor, won’t need the inhibitors, won’t need anything but your Karkat. (Even as you pray it, though, you don’t believe it, and blasphemy that is.)

You see Karkat every other day, when you’re calm enough for it, but it ain’t damned near enough. You are most fucking grateful when your two weeks are up. You shovel sopor into your mouth like it’s the last thing you’ll ever eat, and within a few hours you’re dumbed up and dizzy as you’ve ever been. You recognize the poison for what it is, after so long unpolluted, but you don’t care. Don’t give half a  _ fucking shit,  _ as long as keeps you safe enough to be around Karkat and your clade. 

As soon as Nuodel releases you, you rush home to him. Crush him up in the biggest hug you can, pepper his pretty face with kisses as he squirms and laughs and curses you. You get a good look at his wounds—they’re healing nicely, clean and healthy, and you chirr happily at that. He smells like Sollux and Nepeta and Equius—all good smells! Smells of your clade, smells of friendliness and contentment, but he don’t smell at all like  _ you,  _ and that’s somethin’ you gotta fix right away. You cuddle him down into the pile and cover him in your scent, purrin’ up a thunderstorm, and he does the same for you. Re-claim your pile while you’re at it—replace your stale scent with fresh and new and watch your Karkat knead happily at the pillows. 

You lie (oh, your secrets, they keep on motherfuckin’  _ building)  _ and tell him the thin little cuts on your ribs and stomach are from training with Nuodel, and he bitches about that until you pap him quiet again. You go out for dinner with your friends, that morning, and they take you to this  _ wicked  _ place they call Sonic. Karkat gets his claws around a cherry limeade and you think maybe he falls in love with it. You roam the town late into the morning, slathered in this miracle called  _ sunscreen  _ (it fights off most of the Earth’s weak-ass sun for you, so you don’t need your suncloak), with sunglasses over your eyes, until the five of you gotta admit defeat and stumble sleepily back to the base.

The next day you make good on your promise to Karkat and ask Nuodel to remove that mental parasite (the one what hurt your moirail, your mind hisses with displeasure) before your trainin’. She grins, clearly pleased with this decision of yours (of your palemate’s) and sits you down in the chapel, goes to town squirming into your head. You try your hardest not to resist her, though you  _ loathe  _ the way it feels when she goes poking around at your parasite.

It stretches for her again, the way you knew it would, and this time you don’t hunch yourself around it, much as you want to. It brushes up against her, and for a second you think it’s gonna  _ connect,  _ the way it’s hungry to—but it reacts with something like confusion, instead, curling back into itself and folding up. Goes quiet again. You pity it. Fuck, maybe Karkat’s right. Maybe it  _ is _ manipulating you into caring for it.

Then Nuodel gets her claws in around it, and  _ fuck,  _ you don’t care whether it’s manipulating you or not,  _ that shit fucking hurts.  _ You howl at her, your voice ringing off of the chapel walls. Feels like she’s trying to dig your goddamn  _ brains  _ out your ears, and she is  _ hurting the most precious part of you.  _ You lash out on instinct, and she snarls and slams you over the head before you can do her any damage. Your world darkens there for a little bit.

When you come back to, your face feels damp. Your head is about the sorest, sorriest thing you’ve ever felt, and you groan, rubbing the roots of your horns with your own fingers. Sends a little inappropriate pale shiver down your spine, but you don’t give a fuck, ‘cause it’s making your head feel less like it’s about to  _ pop.  _

“Good news and bad news, Makara,” Nuodel says. She’s sitting in the pew next to you, her arm draped over the side. You groan at her. “The good news is that you’re still alive and functional. Thought there for a little bit I’d really fucked you up. The  _ bad  _ news is that whatever you got in your brain, I can’t get it out.”

“You—what?” you croak. Ain’t much that can stand up to an adult highblood. Maybe you should fear your little parasite more than you do. “Why not?”

“Fuck if I know.” She throws her hands up, exasperated, and you flinch. “It won’t budge for me, and trust me,  _ I tried.” _

“Yeah, I can feel that,” you mumble. You touch the wet skin beneath your nose—fingers come away wet with blood. “Motherfucker.”

“We’ll get a cerulean to look at it. Noir brought one down from New Hampshire—we’ll see what she can do before she goes back.” Nuodel stands, popping her back, and you push yourself to sit up. “Now, though—we’ve wasted enough time. Let’s get to training, Makara. It’s your pool day.”

You shiver yourself smaller but don’t protest, staggering to your feet. The world sways around you. As you follow Nuodel out of the chapel you reach, curious, for the parasite in your head—it’s folded up as tight as it can go, drawn back into a hard shell of nothingness, and it doesn’t respond when you nudge at it. Stubborn fucker. You sure hope it ain’t as malevolent as you’re starting to think it might be.

As you head towards the pools, a purpleblood wiggler bursts through the training room doors. “Makara!” she shouts. You wince a little, because that is  _ way  _ too loud after your mental trauma. “I need Gamzee Makara."

“What you need with him?” Nuodel demands, looming over the wiggler. 

“His palemate—Karkat Vantas, something’s wrong with him, he—”

You’re moving before she has a chance to finish, your heart slamming in your chest. You race out of the private training rooms and find Sollux in the basic training room, nervous sparks flashing between his horns. 

“Gamzee, thank fuck—come on.” He spins around and takes off without another word, for which you’re grateful, and the two of you bolt up the stairs and to your block. A million awful scenarios race through your head—what’s your palemate done on himself now? Has he gotten into another fight? Has Noir hurt him, the way he hurt Sollux? Has another one of your purple siblings fallen on him in a rage?

Fuck, you are so scared. 

You burst into the block panting and trembling hard, and you find Karkat laid out on the ground with Nepeta and Equius beside him. He’s curled up in a tight little ball, hands cupped over his horns and face pressed into his knees. A high, panicked whine comes from his throat—the only pauses in it are when he gasps a breath in. He’s shivering all over, and when you kneel beside him you see tear tracks on his face and blood beneath his nose. 

“Oh, thank goodness—Gamzee, what’s wrong with him?” Nepeta asks, like  _ you  _ have any idea. Her eyes are round and overbright with fear. “What can we do to help?”

“Fuck, I don’t know.” Your hands flicker over Karkat, inches away from his skin, afraid to touch him. He doesn’t look hurt anywhere else—leastways, there’s not anymore blood that you can see. You risk a hand on his shoulder and he keens, curls tighter into himself. You lean closer, try to soothe him with your voice. “Karkat—Karkat, little brother, shhh. It’s okay, it’s alright. I’m here now, shh-shh-shh.”

Beside you, Equius gathers Nepeta in arms, and the two of them retreat to stand beside Sollux. You can hear them murmuring together, standing a guard at your block door, and for that you are motherfucking grateful. It lets you turn your attention completely to your best friend, knowing your clade won’t let anyone near you as would harm. You sit back, bundle Karkat into your lap and rock him. 

“Shh,” you breathe, mouth pressed just above the pointed tip of his ear. “Shh, Karkat, shh. Come back to me, little brother. I’m right here. I’ve got you, you’re safe. What’s wrong, huh? What trouble you got yourself into this time, littlest motherfucker?”

Karkat whines up at you, all pain and terror, and your heart breaks from pitying him. You draw your claws along his scalp, the back of his neck—you ache to take hold of his horns, bring him down soft and safe and pale, but you don’t. He hasn’t given you permission yet, and you won’t take from him what he’s not willing and wanting to give. Slowly—oh, so slowly—Karkat uncurls under your touch, his breathing slowing.

And as he uncurls, so does the parasite in your head.

“What,” he breathes, his voice a cracked rasp, “the fuck.”

“I could say the same to you,” you say, burying your face against the crook of his neck and breathing in the scent of him. “Motherfuck, best friend. Why you always gotta get yourself into trouble when I’m gone?”

“‘s a hobby,” he says, his voice dry, and you gotta laugh. Leave it to your brother to find his wit at death’s door. “The fuck happened?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Sollux came and got me—found you all curled up and cryin’ like somebody was hurting you something fierce.” You squeeze him close, careful not to put undue pressure on his wounds. “What happened here?”

“I—I—don’t know.” He frowns, rubbing his forehead. “We were just—playing cards, and then I guess I—blacked out or something. Damn. But I feel okay now, I think.”

“Okay.” You let out a breath, pulling back to glance at your clade. “Equius, can you grab me a washcloth from the ablutions block, motherfucker?”

“Of course, highblood.” 

“And Sollux, what the hell happened?”

“We were playing cards,” Sollux says, his voice rapid with an overabundance of energy, “and then he just—fuck, he started screaming. I don’t know why, nothing changed—and then he curled up and he wouldn’t talk to us and he was bleeding and—”

Karkat stiffens in your arms, and you realize the wrong word right after he does. Aw, fuck. “Bleeding?”

“Shh.” You rest your chin between his horns, hold him close. Take the washcloth from Equius when he offers it and gently wipe the blood and tears from Karkat’s face. “Shh, it’s okay, Karkat. Don’t get yourself worked up.”

Karkat reaches out, touches the bright red stain on the washcloth. Looks from you to Sollux to Nepeta to Equius. You feel the tremble roll through his body like a wave. “I—”

“It’s okay, Karkat,” Nepeta says softly. She steps forward, stretches a hand towards him like he’s a frightened animal. He’s barely breathing. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

“While it is a horrific and cull-worthy mutation,” Equius adds, “I somehow find that it does not disgust me as much as it should. You’re my—friend, Vantas. It wouldn’t do to harm you for something you cannot change.”

Sollux holds up his hands in surrender. “Hey, man, no surprise here. Already knew you were a freak.”

“Get out.” Karkat’s voice is soft, flat. Ooooh, no. “Now.”

“KK, come on—”

_ “Get out.” _

“It’s probably best you leave, motherfuckers,” you say, offering them an apologetic smile—but you gotta be doin’ what’s best for your palemate, right now. “I’ll catch you later, okay? All’s well, I promise.”

Sollux shakes his head, pins his ears, and leads the way out. Nepeta hesitates, chewing her lip, but Equius ushers her along. They lock the door behind them, and then Karkat is hissing, his claws digging into your sweatpants and his body trembling—with rage or fear or both, you’re not sure. 

“Okay,” you murmur, resuming your gentle rocking and rubbing the back of his neck. Fuck, he’s a mass of knots. “Okay, little brother. We’re not having a crisis. We’ve not having a crisis, it’s okay, we’re not having—okay, we’re having a crisis, shh,  _ shh-shh—”  _

“They know,” Karkat says, his voice choked. He shakes himself apart in your arms and you try desperately to hold the pieces of him together. “They know, Gamzee, they know, we have to go, we have to leave—”

“No, no,  _ shh,  _ best friend. It’s alright. Yeah, fuck, they know, but they aren’t gonna hurt you. They said as much. And if they tried—oh, brother, if they motherfucking  _ tried—”  _ A flash of cold fury claws its way through the sopor in your head, sets you snarling. “I would tear them limb from limb and drown them in their own motherfucking blood.”

“They’ll—they’ll tell others, fuck,  _ fuck,  _ they’ll tell other trolls and then they’ll—they’ll—” He gasps in a breath, too quick, too forceful, digs his claws into your legs hard enough to make you wince. “— _ culled,  _ they’re going to cull me, just like they should’ve sweeps ago—”

You snap your teeth shut around a growl, squeezing Karkat tighter to you.  _ “Never, best friend.  _ Never fucking ever. Listen.  _ Listen to me.  _ I’d never let them hurt you, Karkat, not ever—and you know Noir doesn’t want you hurt, either. You’re valuable to them here, and as long as that’s so, they won’t let you be hurt just because of your blood color. If anybody tries I’ll tear them to fucking  _ pieces,  _ and you know Noir’ll let me—fuck, he’d probably help me. You’re safe here, Karkat—safer than you were on Alternia, any-fucking-how.”

He’s still breathing too fast, too quick, but he’s got an ear cocked back as he listens to you. You rub a hand in slow, soothing circles across his chest—breathe nice and deep, try to settle him with the pattern. “But they—but they’re going to—”

“Nepeta and Equius aren’t going to do anything you don’t want them to, little brother. We’ll have a talk with them, make sure of it. Hell, it’s probably better now they know. They were bound to find out someday, best friend, us living so close to them and all.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, curls his claws up and into your shirt. “I just—I don’t—”

“Shh-shh-shh. Speak it at me, love. I’m here, I’m listening.” You nuzzle at the tip of one ear, breathe out a soft little shoosh and watch him shudder. “Let me help you.”

When Karkat opens his eyes again, they’re bright and glassy with tears. You croon softly at him, your heart aching for this fucked-up little miracle of a troll. “I don’t want them to hate me,” he whispers, shoulders hunching with his shame. “Fuck. Fuck, I know that’s stupid, it’s not like I  _ give a shit, _ I just—”

“Oh, Karkat.” You rest your cheek between his horns, scratch softly between his grubscars until he shivers himself limp against you. “Oh, best beloved, you give all the shits. They’re your  _ friends,  _ fucker, of course you want them to like you. And they  _ do  _ like you _.  _ You heard them. Your blood color doesn’t change anything between you and them, and they’ll tell you as much when we go talk to ‘em.”

Karkat sniffles, scrubbing angrily at his eyes until you touch his balled-up, furious little fists and guide them away. “Equius said it was—it was  _ cull-worthy  _ and  _ horrific,  _ and—”

“Equius says everything that’s not in line with his view of the hemospectrum is cull-worthy and horrific,” you remind him gently. He looks up at you, lower lip wobbling, and holy  _ fuck  _ but you are so in love with him and his weakness. “I’m not saying that makes it motherfucking  _ right,  _ but that’s just how he is. It doesn’t mean as much as you think it does.”

“Maybe,” Karkat admits, taking a deep breath. You scratch across his stomach as a reward for gettin’ himself settled down and he curls up closer to you. “I don’t know. Fuck, I don’t know. I’m getting sick of being scared because of—” He examines his own hands, sighs heavily.  _ “This.  _ Me. Why couldn’t I have just been hatched a normal fucking troll?”

“Messiahs had grander plans for you, little motherfucker,” you tell him all peaceful-like. You’ve been certain of that fact since he first told you what miracles ran through his veins. You know that argument won’t hold with him, though, heathen that he is. “And mayhap because that’s just the kind of luck you have—often as you’ve been gettin’ hurt, lately, I wouldn’t doubt it.”

He snorts, tipping his head back to kiss under your chin—sends a little flare of protective instinct rippling up and down your back, and you chirr contentedly at him. “Yeah, that’s probably right. My shitty luck.”

“Gotta get you armored up in some bubble wrap or some shit,  _ motherfuck,  _ brother. I can’t go two hours without worrying about you.”

“Oh, my bad. I’ll try to plan my traumas out on an every-other-day schedule from now on.”

“Can we make it an every-other-sweep schedule?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

You hum happily at him—lean down and press a kiss to the tip of his nose. “Much obliged, best friend. Now, then—” You sit back, sighing regretfully. “I gotta get back to Nuodel. She’ll tear me a new one if I skip out on training, but I don’t rightly like the idea of leaving you all alone, especially after that fit you had.”

Karkat hunches his shoulders, frowning. “I know. I just—don’t really want to—”

“I know,” you assure him. “You don’t have to see the clade yet. It’d make me feel a mighty bit better if you’d visit the medic’s office, though.”

He opens his mouth to protest, then shuts it and sighs through his nose. Lifts a hand and pats your cheek. “Right. Okay, but  _ just  _ for you.”

You grin at him, nuzzling into his hand. “And grateful I am for your sacrifice, palemate mine.”

He grunts at you, and you help him onto his feet. Take him down to the medic’s office, then reluctantly return to Nuodel, who is (predictably) motherfucking pissed at you. Fortunately, it’s a pool day, so she can’t really make your life much worse than it already is. You’ve tried to trick her a couple times, in the pool—tried to fake out bein’ done, but you never quite can. You think she only pulls you out once she feels that big spike of fear you get when you start thinking you’re about to  _ literally fucking die.  _

And, despite knowing you’re not going to die, you do always get that fear.

You’ve gotten a goodly bit better at staying afloat, though. Can almost do it fifteen hours straight, now—and that after she’s already run you ragged with other training. When you’re swimming, your whole world gets reduced to that and nothing else. Just the movements of your heavy limbs, the stressed in-and-out pulse of your lungs, the weight of the water. That’s the reason, then, that you suppose you forget about one very important detail that day—

Your parasite.

But oh  _ boy,  _ do you remember the next evening. You jolt awake in the slime, feelin’ all achy and awful, the way one does after drowning. You spend a few minutes just breathing through your lungs, reminding yourself that’s a thing you  _ can  _ do and rubbing the knots out of your shoulders. Glance across from you and see Karkat’s ‘coon—wonder if he’s still sleepin’ in there. You figure he probably is. He usually does sleep longer than you. Must be all that energy he burns tryin’ to keep hisself on fire, you think. 

And  _ then  _ you remember that  _ oh fuck  _ you think your parasite is hurting Karkat. Because he’d started hurting when Nuodel tried to tear it from you yesterday, didn’t he? Because he got sick when you connected it to him. Because  _ fucking hell,  _ maybe you really did infect him. Shit. Shit shit shit. 

You close your eyes, fumble to find the parasite in your mind. Now that you know where it is, it’s easy to locate, and it responds eagerly to you—stretches itself out, and you wrap yourself around it. It feels soft, dreamy. Gentle flickers of color and shapes roam behind your eyelids. The scent of storms, of roe cubes. You feel warm.

Fuck that, you feel like you’re  _ burning.  _ Your anger is a sharp, poisonous thing on the back of your tongue—how  _ dare  _ this creature hurt your palemate.  _ How dare it.  _ You tighten your grip on the monster in your head, pour your loathing into it. It writhes around you but doesn’t try to escape, and the feelings that pulse from it darken with fear. The scent of storms twists into the sour scent of terror, the roe cubes are replaced with the coppery stench of your palemate’s blood. The gentle flickers of colors become bright, streaking slashes—the shapes grow looming and terrible, claws and fangs and enormous moving beasts. The parasite’s terror infects you, makes you dizzy with your want to escape, and the more anger you shove into it the more fear you get back. It’s an awful, sickening loop.

_ Get out!  _ you howl at it, your fury trembling under the weight of its fear. How can you continue to loathe something so  _ pathetic?  _ It stings you to hurt it. It stings something deep in you—stings you the same place Karkat’s tears do, and how  _ dare it  _ think to touch you where only your palemate should ever be allowed?! Karkat was right. This motherfucker is bad for you.  _ Get out of my HEAD OR I’LL TEAR YOU OUT! _

But you—can’t tear it out, can you? Not if it’s infected Karkat, too. So despite your loathing for this  _ thing  _ in your head, you take care not to damage it with your psychic claws, dull though they might be. The only thing you can think to do is to make your mind so  _ motherfucking unpleasant  _ for it that it leaves of its own accord. Maybe when it leaves you, it’ll leave your Karkat, too. 

Fuck, you hope.

And then Karkat wakes up—scrambles out of his ‘coon gasping and coughing up slime, his eyes wide and blazing orange. He perches on the edge of his coon, claws hooked and hair standing on end, baring his teeth at the empty brightness of your block. There’s a desperate, terrified hiss in his throat. 

“Karkat—fuck, Karkat, c’mere—” 

Karkat is bolting for you before the first word is out, scrambling into your ‘coon and cramming himself down next to you in the slime. His arms seize tight around your waist and he buries his face against your chest, shivering hard, choking himself around growls. You think—shit, you think maybe you fucked up. You think maybe this parasite ties you closer to Karkat then you first thought. You think—

Shit, what the  _ fuck  _ are you supposed to think?

You croon and shoosh and rock your best friend until he’s settled, and he stammers at you about awful nightmares and  _ angry, something was so  _ angry,  _ and I don’t know why, don’t know what I did, I was so  _ scared  _ and now I feel guilty and I don’t know why I  _ don’t know why, fuck fuck fuck—

You yank yourself away from the parasite like it’s stung you, cut off the flow of guilt and terror and anger between you and it and Karkat gasps like he’s been struck, then shudders down against you with a sob of relief. Oh shit. Oh shit you think you just figured out what this fucking parasite is doing. Oooooh shit.

“Karkat,” you whisper, your voice real quiet, as is fitting of a most holy motherfucking revelation. “Karkat, fuck, brother, I think I just figured it out.”

“Figured  _ what  _ out?” he demands, his eyes still bright with tears and desperation. “What the hell is there  _ to  _ figure out? I had a shitty nightmare, it doesn’t—”

“The  _ parasite,  _ bro,” you tell him, breathless with excitement. “I just figured out what the fuck it’s doing to us.”

“You— _ what?” _

“The thing! The thing in my head, brother, it’s  _ connecting  _ us. If I wake it up, it lets you feel what I feel, lets me feel what  _ you  _ feel.” Messiahs, this is the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you and you ain’t even mad about it. “Holy shit.”

“You are,” Karkat says—quietly, earnestly, “absolutely insane.”

“No, I’m for serious, bro,” you insist, squishing his cheeks between your hands. “Look, I can prove it.” 

You reach for that parasite in your head—it reacts warily to you, this time, which floods you up with all sorts of guilt. That was  _ Karkat  _ you were hurting. Fucking  _ hell.  _ But you choke that guilt off right quick, because you don’t want the first thing he feels from you (well, the first thing he  _ knows  _ he’s feeling from you) to be your guilt. You coax the little parasite to connect with you again, and as soon as it does you feel a flood of fear and overwhelming confusion. Karkat. Oh, your poor Karkat.

You wrap yourself tighter around him, breathe out a slow shoosh, and at the same time you pour as much love as you can into that little parasite—into your Karkat. The pulse of fear you feel from him dies off, and he goes slack in your arms, jaw falling open a little bit as he stares at you. His eyes start to well up with tears and you go to jerk back, but he sets a hand on your face. “No,” he breathes. “It’s good. Good tears. What. What the  _ fuck.  _ That’s you?”

You nod earnestly at him, a grin spreading across your face. “Yeah. Yeah, fuck yeah, that’s me, bro.”

He stares at you a good minute longer, not even blinking, and you feel a languid sort of disbelief drifting from him. Fuck, that is so cool. You are so in tune with him right now. You are the in-tunest pair of moirails there ever was. You feel a sharp prick at your side, and you jump and wince.  _ Then  _ Karkat blinks, shifting his hand away from his side, where he’d just—huh. Pinched himself. You guess you can feel whatever physical shit he does, too. 

That is so fucking bitchtits.

“Sorry,” he says. “Had to—make sure.”

“No, ‘s cool. But bro—” You squish his cheeks again, excitement humming through you—and, by extension, through him. You can see his pupils swelling up with it. “Do you get how motherfucking  _ cool  _ this is? All the  _ shit  _ we can do now—”

“Hey, hey, fuck, hold up—and stop being in my head.” He wrinkles his nose. “It’s hard enough to think this through without you rubbing your gross feelings all over me.”

“Oh, shit, sorry—” You cut off from the parasite and Karkat relaxes, letting out a little breath. 

“Thanks.” He rubs his temples, groaning. “Okay. Shit, okay. That is the weirdest fucking thing ever. So you—this fucking parasite, it’s connecting us. The question is:  _ why?  _ And for how  _ fucking  _ long? It must have happened since we got to Earth, right? We can’t have been ignorant of it for that long. Walk me through how you found it, again.”

“It was with Nuodel. She said she wanted to double-check that I hadn’t—” You hunch your shoulders a little. “Hadn’t made a fear-link between us. She said there wasn’t one, but she found the little parasite instead.”

“What made her want to check in the first place? What’s a fear-link?”

“Ah—motherfuck, bro. A fear-link is like a—a thing ‘voodoos can do. They link two trolls together, so you share fear. Ain’t a healthy thing, and I’d never do it to you purposeful-like. Nuodel said since I didn’t have control over my shit, though, I might have done it unawares. But there wasn’t a fuckin’ functional one, so—”

“A  _ functional  _ one?”

“Well, there was an old one,” you admit, ducking your face in shame. “Fuck. I didn’t even know about it until she told me, bro. I swear I’d never motherfucking—”

“Hey, it’s okay.” He bumps his forehead against yours—reaches for your hand and wraps his tiny fingers around yours. “I’m not gonna get mad at you for being honest with me. She said it wasn’t working anymore, though?”

You shake your head adamantly. “No, not at all. It was from almost a sweep ago—fuck, I don’t know why I made it. I can’t even remember  _ making  _ it.”

“Well, I must not have noticed it, either. Maybe it didn’t even last that long, right? How long do they usually last?”

“I don’t know.” God, fuck, you are so motherfucking ignorant when it comes to your ‘voodoos. “But fuck, I hope you’re right. I hope it didn’t last more than a goddamn second. I’d hate to scare you in any way, Karkat. You know that, don’t you?”

He cups your jaw in one hand, brushes the warm pads of his fingers across your cheek. “Yeah, I know, dumbass. It’s  _ okay.  _ Do we need to jam about this?”

“No, no, ‘s fine. I wanna jam about  _ this—”  _ You nudge at the parasite in your mind, see him shiver at the influx of curiosity you give him. “Shit’s priority, bro.”

“Nuodel—she said this  _ wasn’t  _ a fear-link?”

“Yeah. Fear-links are for fear only, and this is—fuck, this is more than that.”

“I noticed,” Karkat says, tweaking your nose. His eyes go far-away, thoughtful, for a second. “But—maybe it  _ is  _ from you.”

“I can’t—”

“No, listen.” He squishes  _ your  _ cheeks, this time. “You fucked your pan on sopor, right? I know it suppresses your ‘voodoos, but maybe it does  _ more  _ than that. Maybe it’s— _ changed  _ you, changed what you can do. Maybe this  _ is  _ a fear-link, but the sopor’s twisted it into something more.”

“So it’s— _ not  _ from some other psychic?” you ask, a little flutter of hope rearing up in your chest (though not without a little bit of guilt, ‘cause  _ fuck you  _ for screwing with your palemate’s mind when you were lacking his consent,  _ fuck you _ ). “Not some terrible power come to twist our thinking? Just some fucked-up ‘voodoo shit?”

“Yeah, maybe. I mean—that seems most likely, right? I don’t know anybody who can do psychic shit like this,” Karkat says, frowning. “Nuodel and Noir’s cerulean didn’t seem to know anything, either. So it  _ must  _ be abnormal, and  _ you,  _ Gamzee, are the most abnormal troll I know.”

You grin toothily at him. “Why  _ thank  _ you, little brother.” Then you cock your head, something nagging at the back of your head. “Noir’s cerulean—you talked to her? About the parasite?”

“Oh, yeah.” Your best friend grimaces a little bit, studying his claws the way he does when he doesn’t want to meet your eyes. “A couple days after you went to stay with Nuodel, I went to visit her. Nuodel had told her about the parasite, and Noir wanted her to check that it wasn’t coming from  _ me.”  _ He snorts. “Like I’m some kind of psychic. They must have missed the memo that states the universe is not to give Karkat Vantas an advantage of any kind, ever, that may make his life any easier in any way.”

You chuckle, ruffling his hair—it’s drying all sticky with the slime, green flakes comin’ off under your palm. “And what’d the cerulean say? You some kinda badass secret psychic, best friend?”

“Absolutely not. So the mutated fear-link seems like the most logical option, right?”

“If you say so,” you agree, because your brother is cleverer than you by far, and if he says it’s so, you believe him. “Sooo—if that’s the case—” You wiggle a little in excitement. “Can we keep it?"

Karkat hesitates, chewing the tip of one little orange claw. “I don’t know, Gamzee. We still don’t know what it’s doing to us. What if it’s draining your power?”

“Fuck, I don’t got any other use for my power, bro. Certainly not a better one.”

“What if one of us gets hurt and we’re  _ both  _ crippled because of it?”

“Well, that’s why we can cut it off. We don’t  _ have  _ to stay connected—but it might help if we have to be far away from each other, like when I’m with Nuodel.” Though you’re determined not to let him feel your drowning, or your withdrawals. You figure well enough that’s why he got so damned  _ sick  _ the first time you showed him the parasite. “Besides, I can keep a closer eye on you, that way. Make sure you’re  _ not  _ hurt.”

_ “You  _ can cut it off,” Karkat corrects you. “And  _ you  _ can open it. I still don’t know how to do that shit.”

“Well, let’s try, then. You know where it is in your head, now I’ve showed you? You just gotta kinda—poke at it. Does the rest on its own, really.”

Karkat frowns, his little brows furrowing together as he concentrates. It must be a little harder for him to parse out, you figure, him bein’ empty of his own psychics. Not a second sense to him, like it is to you. He still finds it pretty fuckin’ quick, though, and you feel a little surge of victory from him whenever he gets your link opened up between you. You beam at him, push your pride through the link and watch him chirp happily at the feeling. 

“And then you just—fold it back up,” you tell at him, though you wish he wouldn’t—wish you could stay with him like this for hours, just feeling the easy back-and-forth of your emotions. No secrets, that way. He must sense your longing, because he cocks his head, curiosity sharpening. And then your sense of him vanishes as the parasite folds back up, tucked away safe in your heads. “See? You’re a natural, best friend.”

Tiny, crooked smile flashes across his face, and he rubs between his horns. “Yeah, whatever, you fucking suck-up. I—” He breathes deep, lets out a gusty sigh. “I  _ guess  _ we can keep it—for a  _ little  _ while. If it fucks either of us up, it’s gone. Nuodel might not have been able to do it without hurting us, but maybe that’s because she’s not the one who made it. You should be able to get rid of it if we need to, right?”

“Uuh—”

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Karkat nods, determined. “Just—stay out of my head unless I tell you otherwise, okay? And I’ll stay out of yours. Deal?” 

You grab his hand, a parody of human politeness, and shake it. He scowls at you, cute little thing. “Deal, beloved.”

“In that case—” He scrambles out of your ‘coon and slides on his slippers, padding towards the ablutions block. “Let’s wash this shit off. I’m fucking  _ sticky. _ ”

You follow right after him, a weight lifted off your chest. Your parasite ain’t some devil come down on the two of you. Your parasite is a  _ link.  _ A most holy, messiahs-given link between you and your best beloved, and if that ain’t serendipity, you don’t know what  _ is. _

You ignore the fact that, despite what Karkat says, the link don’t feel like  _ you.  _ For all your ignorance, you’re good at recognizing what belongs to your ‘voodoos and what doesn’t. And the link? Well. That feels as foreign to you as the human language, but there  _ is  _ a kinda warm familiarity about it. So hell, maybe it does belong to you. To you and your sopor, at least. And if it’s keepin’ you locked up safe with your best beloved, well—

What is there to motherfuckin’ worry about?


	27. serrated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: the usual violence/blood/abuse, castism, mentions of nsfw
> 
> chapter tracks: “escapism” by rebecca sugar + “you worry me” by nathaniel rateliff & the night sweats

Ugh. Fuck. You hate apologies. You hate apologies so, so much, especially when  _ you’re  _ the one who has to make them. But you  _ did  _ fuck up, snapping at your—your friends, the way you did. You’re not going to grovel, though. Fuck that. You have  _ some  _ pride left, tattered and wounded though it may be. You—

Nepeta opens the door, and all of your pride flies out the nearest window and fucks off to hell. “Hey,” you say, scuffing the toe of your sneaker against the floor. Wow. What a fascinating floor. “Hey, so like, are you mad at me about the other day, because—”

She throws her arms around your neck, squeezing you tightly and burying her face against your shoulder. You stiffen—fuck. Fuck you are not used to being hugged by anyone but your moirail, and she’s all lean muscle and lukewarm skin and tangled hair. She smells like wild plants, like wet grass and warm fur. “No, I’m not mad,” she says, laughing. “You can be purr-ty dense sometimes, Karkat. I was never mad.”

You snort, resting your hands on her shoulders with the  _ entire  _ intent to push her away because she has no sense of proper trollish boundaries—and then you just kind of. Let them rest there. On her shoulders. “Yeah, well. Well. I was mad at  _ you, _ so—”

“You’re mad at everyone all the time,” she teases, releasing you after a moment and tugging you into her block. Equius glances up at you from his spot seated on their couch, a (very damaged) video game controller in his massive hands. “Equius, tell Karkitty we weren’t mad at him.”

“Why would we be mad at him?” Equius asks, his brows drawing together in a look of very troubled consternation. “Has he done something improper?”

“Other than defying the laws of the hemospectrum and biological probability?” you ask, as dryly as you possibly can and definitely  _ not  _ waiting anxiously on his answer. 

“Ah. That.” Equius sets the controller aside, rising from the couch and setting a careful hand on your shoulder. You twitch to think how easily he could break you, like that. You think he probably tear your whole arm off in one smooth motion, if he wanted to. (You really, really hope he doesn’t want to.) “While your mutation  _ is  _ deplorable in its own right, it’s not something you have control over. I cannot be angry at you for it anymore than I can be angry at Gamzee for being hatched a subjugglator. You were both hatched into your proper positions in this world, and fighting against them will do none of us any good. We can only accept what is.”

“That would sound incredibly wise,” you tell him solemnly, “if it wasn’t wrapped in the context of your stinking casist bullshit.”

“Thank...you?” Equius says, squinting behind his sunglasses. “I think. Besides, it’s not as though you’re going to contribute to the genetic slurry, now that you’re on Earth, so your mutation has little influence on proper Alternian order. I find nothing overtly harmful in it.”

“Yeah,” Nepeta agrees, pulling you down on the couch to sit between her and Equius. “We’re not on Alternia anymore, Karkitty. Things like that don’t matter. I’m only sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell us sooner.”

“No, that’s—not your fault,” you say, even though it kind of is, because Equius is a slut for the hemospectrum and you definitely expected him to want to cull you. “Hiding it is just a habit, I guess. And it’s not one that I want to break, so if you guys could avoid—”

“We won’t tell anyone,” Nepeta assures you, and your shoulders slump a little in relief. “Right, Equius?”

“That’s correct. We discussed it at length and decided that telling anyone would be detrimental to our clade as a whole,” Equius agrees. “So you have nothing to fear. Your secret is ours as well, Karkat.”

You take a deep breath, relaxing your fists. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Does anyone else know?” Nepeta asks, cocking her head. The tip of her tail, which is curled in her lap, twitches back and forth. 

“Gamzee knows, and the medics and Sollux and Nuodel and Noir and that cerulean from New Hampshire—”

“Oh, Vriska?”

“Sure, fuck, if that’s her name. Long story short,  _ way  _ too many people know, and I’d really like to keep it from spreading further. I know my death isn’t legally required here, but that doesn’t mean other trolls aren’t going to  _ want  _ it if they find out I’m a freak.”

“An apt precaution to take,” Equius says. “May I—inquire about the alterations your mutation allows you?”

“Sure, fuck. Fire away. Let me divulge all of my filthy secrets at once.”

“Do you have any psychic abilities?” he asks. “Are your strength levels atypical from that of lowbloods? How did you receive a sign if you don’t have a caste? How did your lusus choose you? Are you aware of your expected lifespan? Did it affect physical... _ attributes _ other than your blood color?”

You blink at him. Sweat springs up on his brow.

“Equius,” Nepeta chasites, tugging gently at a lock of his hair. “Behave. Although—” She glances shyly at you, her olive blood blazing through the thin skin of her cheeks. “I wouldn’t mind if it  _ had.” _

Your own cheeks burn. “What the  _ fuck,  _ no—” 

“So is your—?” Equius starts.

“Yes, everything you think should be red is red,” you say hastily, very eager to  _ not talk about this please and thanks _ . “Let’s not talk about it anymore ever at all holy  _ fuck—” _

“Even your noo—”

_ “Yes even that!”  _ you shriek, burying your face in your hands. “Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up—”

“Of course,” Equius agrees hastily. He’s blue to his shoulders. “I don’t have anymore questions about color. But is the shape—”

“It’s a perfectly fine shape! They’re both a perfectly fine shape! I guess! Oh my god shut  _ up—”  _ You pounce on him, spitting mad to hide your embarrassment, and he yelps and topples over the armrest of the couch. You are under no delusions that you can match his dumb overpowered strength, but as long as he’s too terrified of hurting you to  _ use  _ it, you have an advantage. So you wrestle him to the ground, trap his head in your lap with an arm (carefully) hooked around his throat, and then ram your nubby little horns into his. He yelps and then—so gently it’s almost comical—attempts to push your face away with one hand. 

“Dogpile!” Nepeta squeals in delight. It’s a human word, and you have no idea what it means, but it involves her pouncing into Equius’ lap to help keep him pinned, so you’re more than alright with it. 

“Nepeta!” Equius protests, clambering to his feet with an ease that would be humiliating if you didn’t know he was a sentient mountain. You cling on, pressing through the pain that flares down your back and scrambling up to perch on his shoulders, nipping at one blue-flushed ear. “This kind of behavior is remarkably improper and uncouth, especially for one of my stature—”

“Oh, and asking about my  _ physical attributes  _ wasn’t?” you growl, giving his ear an extra-hard nip for that. He yelps and swats at you, but his blow is hardly more than a pat across your horns.

“It was a natural curiosity—” he protests as Nepeta digs her claws in and climbs up his back, half-draping herself over you in order to perch on his shoulders, too. She’s careful to keep her weight braced on her feet and hands, though, instead of sprawling it across your injured back, for which you’re grateful. 

“And playfighting is a natural pastime,” Nepeta says brightly, curling around to bite sharply beneath his chin. “Fight me! Fight meeeee—”

“Karkat is injured,” Equius protests, pinching the back of Nepeta’s shirt between his fingers and tugging her face away from his throat. “The highblood would be well within his rights to punish us if we damaged his palemate any further.”

Nepeta rolls her eyes, climbing out onto Equius’ bicep and wrapping herself around his arm like a leech as he tries to shake her off. “Gamzee? Hurting people is the last thing he’d do—especially  _ us,  _ silly. We’re his fur-iends.”

“Yes, well, friends or not, sometimes trolls can’t control themselves,” Equius insists, reaching back and trying to grab the nape of your neck. You duck, growling and snapping at his fingers, and he flinches back. 

“I think they can control themselves better than they  _ think  _ they can. They just need a little bit of confidence,” Nepeta says, nibbling at Equius’ wrist. You think probably they aren’t talking about Gamzee anymore. Nepeta’s tail brushes your face and you dig your teeth in it just for the satisfaction of biting—to your surprise, she reacts, squealing and lashing it out of your mouth. That is some  _ cool  _ machinery, even you have to admit. 

“Nepeta!” Equius says, his voice cracking. You feel a pang of seriously inappropriate sympathy and hiss at him for making you have  _ feelings,  _ damnit. “I could  _ hurt  _ you—”

“Of course you  _ could,”  _ Nepeta says, entirely unafraid as she curls herself around and bats at your face in retaliation for her tail. You jerk back as her claws catch your nose, clicking irritably and flattening your ears. “But you won’t.”

Equius growls, then—a mountain-shaker of a growl, low and deep and powerful enough to vibrate through his shoulders and up into your hands. He reaches up and grabs Nepeta by the scruff of her neck, holding her up in front of him with his broken teeth bared. She curls up like baby meowbeasts do—knees to her chest, tail tucked between them—and then she reaches out and boops his nose. “See?” she says cheerfully. “Not hurt.”

Equius makes an absolutely exasperated sound and then drops her on the couch. He reaches for you, next, and you growl and scramble out onto his opposite arm. You lose your footing at his elbow, though, and slide down until you’re dangling from his bicep. He arches an eyebrow at you. You scowl at him. “Fucker,” you say. 

He rolls his eyes and grabs the scruff of your neck—you do  _ not  _ curl up, thanks. Your lusus was definitely not a mammal, and as such, your body decided when you were quite young that scruffing had no effect on you. (Now, pressure between your grubscars is a  _ different  _ story, and you’d have to bite Equius’ fingers off if he tried that.) You are quite unceremoniously dropped onto the couch next to Nepeta, and she laughs and swoops over to nip your cheek. You shove her off, growling. 

“Right, well,” you grouch at them, though something in you has relaxed. They don’t hate you. They’re still your friends. They still want to playfight with you, the fuckers. “I’ll leave you both to your weirdass piling practices, then.”

“Wait.” Equius points at you. “You still didn’t answer my  _ other  _ questions.”

“Other questions?”

“Yes. I will repeat them for you: do you have any psychic abilities? Are your strength levels atypical? How did you receive a sign? How did your lusus choose you? Are you aware of your expected lifespan?”

“Jeez, what, are you writing a novel?” You scowl at him, then tip your head back and sigh. “Fine. No, I don’t have any psychic abilities, and no, I don’t have atypical strength. I’m just—average.”

“You seem to be close to Nepeta’s physical strength,” Equius offers. “Maybe you’re a mutated oliveblood.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” You snort. “I don’t know how the fuck I got my sign or why my lusus chose me. Those were both things that happened before I even started making conscious memories. Maybe the crabshitter was scentblind, I don’t know. And I don’t know my lifespan, either. So there you have it; I’m a wellspring of information, me.”

“Well, thank you for answering as best you could, anyhow,” Equius says. “Shall we be expecting you and the highblood for dinner?”

You wave a hand at him, heading for the door. “Yeah, sure. Meet at six?”

“Six sounds purr-fect,” Nepeta says, beaming at you. “Bye, Karkitty! See you later.”

You slip out of the block and shut the door behind you, sighing. Thank fucking god. That’s two of your friends who don’t hate you or want to see you culled, at least. Now you just have one more to apologize to. You’re heading for Sollux’s block when you feel a gentle nudge in your mind—in that strange, new place you didn’t even know existed until this evening. Gamzee. You open your mind to him with a soft chirp, and he surrounds you in a wave of adoration and curiosity. Fuck, you don’t think you’ll ever get tired of feeling how much he loves you. He’d wanted to come with you to talk to your friends, but Nuodel had snapped him up for training earlier than usual. Bitch. 

You try your best to keep the anger out of your emotions, though, as you push a wave of contentment towards him. He responds with a flash of pride and you grin, stretching your arms above your head to ease the sudden ache in them. Gamzee (and by extension now, you) feels sore and tired, but he’s already drawing back from you, unwilling to let you hover in those sensations. You let him go with a wistful little spike of longing, cutting away from that strange, hungry corner of your mind until you feel like  _ you  _ again.  

Sollux is slow to answer his door when you knock, and when he does, he’s got his ears pinned and a pair of golden headphones looped around his neck. He flicks his ears up when he recognizes you, though, shoulders relaxing. “Oh—hey, KK. You wanna come in? I was just talking to AA.”

“Oh, shit, sorry, man. I don’t wanna interrupt—”

“No, come on, don’t be dumb. You’re not interrupting. Come say hi.”

He leads you into his block and you kick the door shut behind you. He’s got his husktop settled on the ground in front of his pile (an ugly affair of battered pillows, ratty yellow blankets, and spare computer parts) and he snuggles right back down in front of it, patting the ground next to the pile. He taps around on his husktop, then slides his headphones off. “Hey, AA,” he says cheerfully as you take a cautious seat beside his pile. “This is that asshole I’ve been telling you about—Karkat Vantas. KK, this is my palemate and the light of my fucking life, Aradia.”

Through the husktop screen, a sickly troll cocooned in white sheets waves at you. “Hello, Karkat,” she says, offering you a small smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you. You’re a bit of an infamous character in Sollux’s stories.”

You crook your mouth up in what you  _ hope  _ is a pleasant smile. “Yeah, I bet. I’ve heard a lot about you, too.” You hook a thumb in Sollux’s direction. “Beefucker here is horn over heels for you.”

“You are absolutely not wrong,” Sollux agrees. 

The three of you chat idly for several minutes, and you find yourself relaxing in degrees. You were keyed the fuck up to come here and apologize to him for being a grade-A asshole, but listening to him joke with Aradia is soothing. For a little while, it feels like everything is normal and okay, and you’re just a normal troll meeting your hatefriend’s moirail. Then Sollux reluctantly says his goodbyes and ends the chat, and you are—

Back to freaking out, yeah. You take a deep breath, folding your hands in your lap. “Sollux, I—”

“Don’t.” He waves a hand at you. “I get it, asshole. You were freaking out. You said shit you regret. We don’t need to make a big deal out of it.”

You scowl at him. “Shut the fuck up and let me apologize. I’ve been working on this apology all day, and it is deserving of—”

“Oh, suck my bulge.” He flips you off, flopping backwards into his pile. “That’d be more fun than listening to you pull your teeth out trying to form a coherent apology without simultaneously insulting me.”

“It is difficult not to insult you at every imaginable point in time,” you admit. “You are utterly loathsome.”

“Well, I’m glad we agree on something.” He tosses you his Nintendo Switch. “How about this? If you can get first place in Mario Kart, I’ll forgive you.”

“What?! That’s no way to form a basis for an apology, you bitch.”

“Well, it sure as hell has to be easier than listening to you snivel.” He sneers at you, then tosses a lumpy pillow at you. “I like pissed-off KK better than miserable KK anytime.”

You flip him off and snatch his Switch, curling up around the pillow and beginning what  _ should  _ have been the easiest apology of your life. It is not. It takes you  _ four fucking hours  _ to get first place on that damned game, and you spit and rage and howl in frustration the whole fucking time. Sollux just cackles his ass off, snuggled down in his pile and watching you with  _ fucking condescending  _ amusement. 

Fuck, but sometimes you think you could be pitch for this asshole, if he wasn’t so  _ pathetic.  _

Once you’ve won your fucking apology, you fling Sollux’s Switch back at him and stomp your way back to your block to get ready for dinner. Gamzee is already there, fresh from the ablutions trap and stretching himself out on your floor. He beams at you when you enter the room, chuffing happily. “Hey, best friend,” he says as you come to stand behind him, reaching down to scratch your claws through the short, damp tufts of his hair. “How was your night? D’you get your talk on with our main motherfuckers?”

“Mm-hm. It went well. Nobody’s going to cull me, so—could have been worse, definitely. Here, fingers towards your toes.” You push gently on his upper back as he reaches his fingers towards his outstretched feet and he groans softly, a shudder running through his shoulders. He holds the stretch for a few seconds, then eases back out of it. “How was your night?”

“Mm, same as usual.” He offers you his arm and you guide it behind his back, stretching out his shoulder and his bicep. “Training was a— _ ah,  _ was a motherfucking  _ bitch. _ Always is. You’d think a motherfucker would get easier, over time, wouldn’t you?”

“You would,” you agree, repeating the previous movement with his other arm. “But Nuodel’s a bitch, so I doubt she’s ever going to go easy on you. What’d she have you do?” You guide the same arm up and over his head, lean him so he stretches his side out.

“Mm—treadmill, weights, same old shit. Oh! We did get to do a little boxing, though. That was new.” 

“Yeah? Did you like it?”

Gamzee grimaces, and you lead him through the same stretch on his other side—keep your movements gentle, relaxed. “Nah, not really. Just felt like more motherfucking exercise, except half the time I got thumped in the face by a fuckin’ punching bag. Kept fucking up my paint.” He rubs his cheek when you let him relax out of the stretch and you croon sympathetically. 

“That fucking sucks,” you say, tugging at the tip of one horn to get him to lay on his back for you. He hitches a knee over his stomach and you obligingly lean your weight against it, helping him stretch the back of his thigh. 

“‘s okay. Wouldn’t be so bad if I could hit the damned thing.” He laughs softly, then coughs, and you scowl. 

“Your cough’s coming back. Fuck that.”

“Mm.” He clears his throat, then shakes his head. “Sure does sound like it, huh? Must be all this human sickness. Does bite a troll somethin’ fierce, little brother, and you know my immune system’s not what it ought to be, on account of the sopor. I wouldn’t worry your badass self too much. If it gets too bothersome, I’ll go see the medics.”

“Damn right you will,” you grumble as he switches legs. “I thought the shots were supposed to prevent this stuff.”

“Supposed to prevent  _ bad  _ stuff, brother,” he says, nodding sagely. “This ain’t bad. Just a little itch in the chest, ‘s all.”

You grunt unhappily, guiding his leg to the opposite side to stretch the outside of his thigh and hip. “She shouldn’t be working you so hard when you’re sick. You’ll never get better.”

“It’ll be okay, little diamond.” He reaches up, pats your face. “No worryin’, now. We’ll make a motherfucker work.” He slumps back to the ground as you reach for his other leg, sighing softly. “Been thinkin’ about my fangs, too.”

You arch an eyebrow at him. “The fuck is there to think about?”

“Well, Nuodel says they’re awful motherfuckin’ dull.” He sticks a thumb into his mouth, pressing the pad to the tip of an eyetooth. “She’s not  _ wrong.”  _

“No,” you agree. “She’s not. But you’ve had this set for—what? A sweep? A sweep and a half?”

“Mm, had the canines a sweep and the rest almost two,” Gamzee says, nibbling the tip of his claw until you click your teeth at him and pull him back into a sitting position. “Should be shedding ‘em all, soon.”

“Yeah, you should be. Probably when you hit your second growth—so what’s to worry about? Maybe they’re dull now, but they’ll be fresh and sharp in a half-sweep or less.”

“Nuodel says I shouldn’t have let them get dull in the first place,” Gamzee murmurs, still fussing at his eyetooth with a claw. You swat his hand away and he glances apologetically at you. “Says I won’t be able to defend myself as well.”

“Fuck, how the fuck were you supposed to keep them sharp? You have to  _ use  _ them. They were bound to get dull after a few perigees.”

“She says I should’ve carved ‘em sharp, bro.”

You snort. “Fang-carving? Seriously? What an elitist fucking piece of shit. Does she realize wigglers don’t just  _ have  _ fang-carving stations? And I would  _ never  _ trust you to try it yourself, no offense.”

“No, you’re alright. Would’ve just fucked somethin’ up. But now I’m here, she says she can carve ‘em for me. Would that be—okay?” He glances hesitantly at you, gnawing his lip with his too-big fangs. “I wanted to get a brother’s opinion, afore I did anything.”

You hesitate, fussing with a tuft of his hair near the base of his horn. You—don’t like it. It’s unnecessary, since he’ll be shedding fangs soon. What’s more, if they’re over-sharpened, fuck knows what kind of damage he’ll do to his own mouth. But Nuodel wasn’t  _ totally  _ wrong. He would be able to defend himself more easily. He would be safer. Trolls with sharp fangs are strong, healthy, dangerous. Trolls with sharp fangs get left alone. 

“It’s okay with me,” you agree, smoothing his hair down again. “Just—make sure she does it right, okay? I don’t want you coming home with goddamned razors in your mouth.”

He laughs, grabbing your hand and pressing a soft kiss to the back of it. Your stomach flutters. “You got it, best friend. No razors.”

“Good.” You clap a hand on his shoulder. “Now c’mon. We have to meet our asshole clade for dinner—we’re getting some shit called  _ hamburgers  _ today.”

* * *

It’s another week before Nuodel gets around to carving your palemate’s fangs, and then one morning he comes back from training with a dazed look in his eyes and a wicked mouthful—not of razors, no, but of knives. You are torn between impressed and horrified, when you see them. You’d been expected a little polish on the points, not—not  _ this.  _ She’s left his back fangs alone, since they’re for whatever little tearing or chewing he designs to do, but the front fangs—

Fuck.

The smallest of those fangs have been sharpened to a gleaming point at the tips, their back edges filed down to a wicked slicing edge. Their front edges, thank fuck, are still gently rounded and safe enough for his lips when he closes his mouth. The largest of his fangs, his two eyeteeth, are a piece of fucking  _ work.  _ Their tips have also been sharpened to a savage point, their back edges filed to a knife-like edge—but that edge isn’t  _ smooth,  _ like the others are. They’re  _ serrated.  _ Micro-serrations, just barely visible, indent the back edge of his eyeteeth in a gleaming row. Your moirail has been, well and fucking truly, weaponized.

“Shit,” you breathe, cupping his chin and tilting his head this way and that. He keeps his mouth open for you, watching you sleepily. There are already sore, bloody spots on his tongue and lips from the sharpened points. 

“‘s it good?” Gamzee asks—he winces slightly when he talks, licking blood from his lips. “Not razors?”

“No. No, not razors,” you say. Your voice might be. A little bit hysterical. “Definitely not razors. Holy shit, Gamzee.  _ Holy shit.” _

“You don’t like it.” His ears droop, dejection flashing through his eyes. “Shit. I’m sorry, best friend.”

“No. Nope. Not your fault.” It was that  _ bitch’s.  _ Always that bitch’s. You reach forward, coaxing his jaw open again—press the pad of your finger against one of the wicked points, then draw it up the back of an eyetooth. It feels harmlessly smooth on the way up. When you slide your finger back down (the way a troll would move if they were trying to get away, to  _ escape _ , you realize with a sickening lurch), the serrations catch and tear on your skin.

“Does it look bad?” he asks miserably, once you’ve moved your finger from his mouth. You’re bleeding. Huh. 

“No,” you say, honestly, wiping your finger as surreptitiously as you can on the inside of your shirtsleeve. “You can’t tell anything is different, from the front, except that they’re sharper. I just—fuck. This was such overkill.  _ Fuck her,  _ seriously.”

“That’d be her adult title, if she took one,” Gamzee agrees, wandering towards the mirror to examine his own fangs. “The Over-motherfucking-killer.”

“Does it—hurt?”

“A little. Still gettin’ used to how they sit, now. Won’t be so bad once I can stop chompin’ on my own tongue.” He tilts his head, humming. “Nah. They don’t look too bad. I think it’ll be okay, best friend. They’ll dull up in a few perigees, anyway.”

“Thank fuck,” you mutter, rubbing your temples. “I’m going to have stand watch the next time she does this, fucking  _ hell.  _ Or! Even better, she  _ never does this again.” _

Gamzee laughs. “Now, there’s an idea. Here—” He turns away from the mirror, spinning his finger in a ‘turn around’ gesture. “Lemme get a look on those wounds before we go to ‘coon.”

You grumble but shed your shirt, letting him rest his chilly hands on your shoulders. “Believe it or not, chucklefuck, they look the same as they did yesterday.”

“Nah, they look a little better,” Gamzee says, sounding satisfied. “Gonna be all sealed up soon. Hey—” You feel him lean his forehead against the back of your neck. His voice is quieter. Nervous. “You still trust me with these fuckers?”

It takes you a minute to realize what he’s hinting at, and it sends a pang of pity right through your heart. “I,” you murmur, reaching around to tangle your fingers in his hair, “trust you with far more than I should, Gamzee Makara, and there’s not a damned thing you can do to stop me.”

Gamzee laughs—a soft, fucking gorgeous sound against your skin—and then he dips his head to clean your wound. You’re tense for the first few rasps of his tongue, feeling the cool flats of his fangs brushing your sore flesh, but there’s no sudden sting. You relax within seconds, leaning back against him and chirring softly. His hands roam gently up and down your sides, claws tickling your skin, and you squirm and chirp at him until he wraps his arms around you and squeezes soothingly between your pair of uninjured grubscars. 

As soon as he’s finished rebandaging your wounds, you squirm around and loop your arms around his neck. Lean up, and he leans down, and you kiss him softly and slow and sweet. You dart your tongue out, test the tips of his fangs carefully, and he lets out a shuddering breath against your lips. “It’s okay,” you murmur, scratching softly through the downy hair at the nape of his neck. “It’s okay, Gamzee. We’re okay.”

“Wouldn’t hurt you,” he mumbles, pressing one gentle kiss after another to your lips—to the corners of your mouth, your nose, your cheeks. He tastes like blood. “Wouldn’t ever hurt you, best beloved. Never fucking ever.”

“Yeah. I know that, you big softie. I trust you.” You slide a hand up, trail your claws over the back of his neck and across his scalp just to watch goosebumps spread across his skin. You settle your hand between his horns, hook your thumb around the base of one. Lower your voice, make it soft and smooth—toss in a little hint of a purr for Maximum Seductive Effect. “Let me take care of you?”

Gamzee leans into your hand, a little shiver running down his back. “You’re hurt,” he protests, but it’s weak at best. “Shouldn’t—”

“I’m healed enough to deal with  _ you,  _ you sentient disaster,” you say, trailing a claw up his horn and savoring the way it clicks across the shallow ridges. “What? You think you’re too much for me, now? Big badass like you—maybe I have to take you down a few notches, hm?” 

Gamzee lets out a little huff of a breath, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. Ha. Got him. “Ooh—damn, bro. You been watchin’ porn?”

“Been reading romance novels,” you correct him, tapping a claw at the tip of his horn (which is almost too high for you to reach, even on your tiptoes, damn it). “But in  _ some  _ cases, that’s almost the same thing.”

He chuckles, leaning forward to mouth softly at your throat. You shiver slightly, imagining those serrated fangs so close to the thin skin over your arteries and veins, but he’s gentle as he’s ever been and you barely feel the brush of his teeth. “Is that right? I oughta get my read on with you more often, then.”

“Mm, I wouldn’t complain. But right now—” You settle both hands around the bases of his horns, though you’re careful to keep your touch light. “I have something even  _ better  _ than a book.”

“Even better?” Gamzee asks—fuck, he already looks a little dazed, leaning heavily into your hands. (Though you suppose that could just be a side-effect of the anesthesia Nuodel must’ve put him under to carve his fangs. It’s more romantic to think it’s because of you, though.) 

“Mm-hm.” You give him a gentle nudge, pushing him back towards the pile. As soon as his heels meet the first pillow, you release his horns and swing your leg out, catching him behind the ankles and sending him toppling backwards into the pile with an undignified yelp—because nobody said moirallegiance was _always_ a gentle quadrant. You follow him down, straddle his lean stomach and brace your hands on his shoulders. “I have the world’s more adorable, most fucking _pitiful_ excuse for a palemate all laid out in front of me, and I _also_ have a want to pile him until he can’t see straight.”

You feel a tiny rumble roll through Gamzee’s chest, his ears flicking. He doesn’t look at all displeased by that idea. “Well, then,” he says, a little breathlessly. “What’s a brother gonna do about all that want?”

“I guess that depends on what my palemate says.” You sprawl out on top of him, reaching forward to scratch behind one downy ear. He tips his chin up, claws kneading at the pillows next to his sides. “Depends on if  _ he  _ wants me to pile him senseless.”

“Mm—I don’t think he’d have any negations to say on that matter, little brother.” He stretches beneath you, and you can feel his muscles shift beneath his skin. He brings a hand up, traces the pads of his fingers softly over the bandages on your back. “Provided, of course, that you’re sure you ain’t too hurt.”

“I think, somehow, I’ll survive,” you say, nipping at his chin. Then you sit back up, gently taking his hands and pressing them down next to his head. “Now stop  _ fussing.  _ That’s my job right now—I claim it, it’s mine, no take-backsies.”

“No take-backsies? That’s solemn law, best friend,” Gamzee says, grinning—but he lets his shoulders relax, shows you the smooth arch of his throat. There’s a scar beneath his chin you hadn’t noticed before. You trail your claw lightly across it and he shivers, drawing his legs up to press his knees to your sides. 

“Fuck yeah it is.” You trace your claw away from his chin—guide it along the smooth curve of his paint along his jaw, take the tip of his ear and rub it gently between your fingers. He squirms underneath you—little, aborted movements that you allow because fuck knows your moirail has shit in the self-control department. You shift your hand further up, rub the pad of your thumb across the shadows beneath his eyes, clicking unhappily. “You’re tired.”

“Can’t rightly say I’m not,” Gamzee agrees, letting his eyes flutter shut. Your heart flips itself over at that tiny display of trust and you chirr softly at him. “But it’ll be okay, best friend. It’ll all work out.”

“I’m making you take a nap tomorrow,” you decide, brushing your fingers over the arch of his nose, his cheeks. He’s got a noble face, you think. High cheeks, arched nose (with a pointy-ass tip), ridiculously smooth eyebrows. He opens his mouth, brows furrowing, and you pap your fingers over his lips before he can protest. “Ah-ah. What the fuck did I say about fussing?”

“It is i-fucking-llegal.” Gamzee cracks a silver eye open to look at you, amused. “No fussin’ here, best friend. I’m the downright law-abiding-est citizen in the whole motherfuckin’ world.”

“You’d better be.” You reach down, pull his shirt up and off so you can nuzzle into his chest. He’s still scrawny as shit, but the past few weeks with Nuodel  _ have  _ built him up. He’s got lean, hard muscle packed in where he was nothing but skin and bone, before. You want to be proud of him for that, but thinking about  _ how  _ he got his muscle makes your claws itch. 

For a second, you pause to press your lips over his heart. Prick your ears and listen to the soft, steady drumming of it. He takes a deep breath, fingers twitching, but he doesn’t move to touch you. You chitter happily at him—offer him a flash of your pride through the link between you and watch him flush purple with pleasure as you drift further down, peppering kisses across his stomach and sides. You knead your fingers into the soft flesh between his grubscars, feel his legs tense and relax beside you, his jaw going slack. 

“Here,” you murmur, reaching around to guide his legs back to the pile so he’s lying flat. “Just relax, Gamzee. I’ve got you.” You knead gently at the flesh of his stomach—it’s lined with hard, wiry muscle, but it’s still the softest part of him, and you feel him shiver when he realizes that, too. You could kill him. You could tear him open with your claws, you could gut him and it would be the easiest thing in the world. Instead, you tap your claws softly against the prominent bones of his hips, press a soft kiss to his abdomen, and you pity him hard. 

You shuffle further down, draw your claws along his thighs. He’s almost as soft here as he is at his stomach—and ticklish, too, you notice with a grin. He twitches gently under your touch, a grin flickering across his face as he huffs out a soft laugh. When he glances down at you, his eyes glitter with mirth. Fuck, but you love seeing him happy. 

“Brother,” he warns—well,  _ tries  _ to warn. You think it comes out more affectionately than he intended it to, and the warmth in his eyes isn’t helping his cause.

“What?” you ask, blinking innocently at him and tracing your claws across the soft, vulnerable skin behind one knee. He squeaks like a grub and giggles, jerking his leg up again. “What is it, buttmunch?”

“That shit  _ tickles,”  _ he whines, and you laugh and pat his knee apologetically. You move to cradle his feet in your lap instead, kneading your fingers into his arches. He groans low and deep in his chest, head falling back against the pillows. “Ooh,  _ oh,  _ brother, ‘s sore there—”

“Bad sore or good sore?” you ask, pausing momentarily in your ministrations.

“Mm, good, I think. Just—go gentle?”

So go gentle you damn well do. You knead softly and slowly along his arches, beneath the ball of each foot, across his heels, until he’s a whimpering puddle of a troll. You smooth your hands up the backs of his calves, massaging the worn-out muscles there, too, and he tangles his fingers in his hair and tips his head farther back, trying to coax you into  _ moremoremore— _ and you?

Well, you don’t take much coaxing.

You slide back up to nestle his head in your lap (sideways, so you don’t gore yourself on his horns), gliding your fingers through his hair and scratching soothing circles along his scalp. He chirps happily at you, squirming around until he can press his face into your stomach. You croon at him, sweet at you can, and then trace a gentle circle around the base of one horn. His breath hitches, shudders, and he lets out a pleading whine for you. You’re as helpless to him as he is to you, right now—you could no more resist that whine than a drowning troll could resist air, so you fit your fingers around his horns and squeeze.

Gamzee’s back arches for a moment, and then he falls limp in your lap, a low moan rumbling in his chest. You shoosh him, the sound coming as easily to you as it ever has, and he flicks his ears at you and chirrs his pleasure desperately. You want more than that, though. You  _ need  _ more than that. You need him limp and purple and purring his heart out under your touch, so you glide your claws up and down his horns. Run your thumb over the tip of one, admiring the sharpness of it (fuck yeah your moirail has the  _ best _ horns), before gliding your claws around the gentle twist near the middle. 

Gamzee’s shoulders twitch, and he lets out a breathless little whine, struggling to push harder into your hands. You draw your hands back, lean down and nuzzle the tip of your nose against his. “Karkat, brother,  _ please—”  _ he says, reaching up to cup the back of your head gently, pressing desperate kisses to your face. 

“Shh,” you murmur, running your palms softly back to the bases of his horns before pulling one away, guiding his hands back to the pile. “Shh-shh-shh. I’ve got it, I’ve got you. You’re alright. Trust me, Gamzee.” You glide your hands back up to the tips of his horns and he whimpers—a cracked, pleading little sound that tears at your heart. “Shh,  _ trust me.” _

“Not enough,” he says, a shuddering gasp. “Not enough, beloved, it’s  _ not enough—” _

You press your lips to his, breath out a shoosh against the rough, chapped skin there and feel him tremble against you. “I know. Hush, Gamzee, I know. Let me have you.” You bite softly at his lips, trace your hands back down, scratch your claws soothingly over his hornbeds. “I’ll take care of you, shh. You just have to trust me. Can you do that, hm? Can you do that for me?”

He cracks an eye open and it gleams, glossy-bright with a film of soft purple tears. His lower lip wobbles and he worries at it with his new, too-sharp fangs until you coax him to stop. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, squeezes his eyes shut, and nods. “Yeah,” he whispers, his voice rough. “Yeah, I can do that, best friend—best friend, best beloved, littlest brother. I can do that.”

And he does. He lets himself lie limp in your lap, keeps his hands still. He doesn’t pull, he doesn’t push. He takes what you give him and no more, and nor does he refuse what you offer. It’s enough to make your chest feel warm and weightless and fuck, you’re purring before he is, pleased with yourself and with him and with the whole goddamn world. You go nice and slow with his horn, keep your touch light and never quite enough until you’re convinced he would lie here for ages, just  _ letting  _ you, and then—

Then, you give him enough. You squeeze hard at the bases of his horns, knead your fingers firmly into his hornbeds and listen to his purr swell. A blissful little smile flickers across his face, his ears flushed purple to the tips and his claws twitching helplessly. He is so perfect. He is so fucking perfect to you. 

You curl yourself tightly around him, determined to protect this helpless troll from the whole goddamn universe and then some, and you work his horns over until he couldn’t possibly be more pacified for you. He’s got his chin tipped back, throat and chest and stomach unguarded, legs splayed—all his softest places shown off for you, a gift. His eyes are closed, his breathing soft and smooth (save for that constant, wet rattle in his lungs, the one you  _ loathe).  _ He smells wonderful—the perfect blend of your scent and his, overlaid by the thick, soft scent of pale pheromones. 

You ease off your touch until you’re just petting him—absent, soft strokes along his hair and his horns and his face. His purr doesn’t diminish at all, and you adore the pattern of it. It fades on each breath in, until it’s just a quiet, breathy little rattle, and then it swells and strengthens with each breath out—the roll of a distant thunderstorm. You rest your head on his chest, sling a leg protectively across his hips and close your own eyes. 

For the moment, you feel completely at peace. Let the world throw at you whatever it will—as long as you’ve got your moirail, you can take it. As long as the two of you are together, there’s not a thing in the goddamn universe that could keep you down. Of that, at this moment, you are totally convinced. 

As long as you have Gamzee, you’ll be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is nine years too late and it's not as well-edited as i'd like to be but a;klgjf it's here


	28. a year in snapshots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings: physical/emotional abuse, mentions of medical procedures
> 
> chapter track: "constellations" by the oh hellos

Time passes in snapshots, after Nuodel begins her ritual of yanking you off of sopor only to give it right back a couple weeks later. There are the good snapshots—the ones where you’re allowed sopor, where things are bright and good and friendly—and there are the  _ bad  _ snapshots. You prefer not to think about those. They are dark, full of blood and training and fights you never win. They are full of Nuodel whispering in your ear, a compliment to the voices in the back of your head, about hatchright and highbloods and worship.

The crisp cold of winter fades rapidly into spring as the month the humans call  _ April  _ begins. On your brief excursions into the city of Tontorak, you see all  _ kinds  _ of new things: bright flowers and colorful birds and (non-acidic!) rain showers. The air smells warm and clean, and the sun lingers longer and longer above the skyscrapers. Karkat likes to sit in the laundromat when it rains, watching the clouds outside the big windows. Sometimes you sit with him, but the dreariness of it all tends to make you more morose than you want to be (and the thunder reminds you too much of waves crashing), so sometimes you also go and play video games with the rest of your clade. 

If you ever get to missing him, though (or he missing you), you have only to reach out to the link in your head to feel a wash of his affection. Mostly, though, the both of you ignore the link, now. You’ve gotten this far without it, and once your fascination with it wears out, it’s nothing more than a mild convenience if you want to beckon him to you from far away or reassure yourself with his presence. Nothing malevolent comes from it, for which you are relieved, and Karkat doesn’t seem inclined to get rid of it as long as it stays soft and gentle and easily-controlled. Nuodel, for the moment, also gives up on getting you to rid yourself of it (though you refrain from telling her what it does).

He still comes to visit you as much as he can, when you’re off sopor. You’re always careful to keep him locked out of your mind during those times, though. Make damn well sure you don’t form any  _ other  _ links, either. He’ll cradle your head in his lap and pet your hair and make the whole awful world feel a tiny bit better, when you get to see him. Your bloodthirst scares you something fucking fierce, though you’ve managed to keep it directed at Nuodel alone. She teaches you to fight—with fang and claw and club—and she teaches you how you ought to worship. How you ought to spill blood for messiahs’ glory, how you ought to write your devotion in broken bone and torn muscle. 

Thinking about your religion is starting to make you a little sick, now.

Then April turns to May, and the world grows warmer still. Karkat is healthy enough to start donating his blood again, and so he does near the beginning of May, and will continue to do every eight weeks thus. John gets out of school, which he’s  _ very  _ excited to tell you all about. Tavros does, too, so you get to spend even more time trolling him or videochatting him, and it is motherfucking  _ bitchtits.  _ But you think both of them are starting to get a little more uncertain about why you keep disappearin’ every two weeks, and you’ve never been the best at keeping secrets (though you have been getting more practice, as of late.) You end up spillin’ a little too much to John—tell him you gotta go someplace every two weeks, do some trainin’ what makes you feel awful sick, and you don’t wanna take it out on him or anybody else.

He gets real worried about that. He asks after your family (still thinks you have a foster family, as Karkat told him all those months ago, poor gullible thing) and why they let you get to feelin’ sick every two weeks, and you trip over yourself trying to reassure him it’s not that bad, you’ve agreed, and it’s all for the best! He seems real uncertain, still. He frowns at you through the screen, head all propped in his hands and blue eyes squinting at you.

“Hey,” he says, in that tone of voice you don’t often hear from him, quiet and serious. “You know if something’s wrong, you can tell me, right?”

“Yeah, I know, bro.” You smile at him nice as you can, though you know you’ll go to your moirail before you go to this funny little human. He’s sweet to offer, though. That’s just the humans’ way, you’re coming to realize. They’re pretty pitiful all the way around. “And you can bet I’m motherfuckin’ grateful for it. But nothing’s wrong as I can’t handle, I promise.”

“I just—I know Alternia didn’t  _ have  _ families, so maybe you don’t—” He fiddles with a pencil, chewing on the eraser. “Do you know what families are  _ supposed  _ to be like?”

“Sure,” you tell him breezily. You think maybe families are a lot like clades. “I got one now, don’t I?”

“That’s what scares me,” he admits. “I don’t know that your family is a good family. Families aren’t supposed to let you feel sick all the time, Gamzee. They’re supposed to keep you happy and healthy and safe, and you’re—you have  _ bruises,  _ you vanish all the time, you—”

“I’m a troll, brother,” you remind him. “We roll rough. Ain’t no thing. We have different, uh, fuck—what’s the word? Starts with a D? Dynamics, motherfuck, yeah! That’s it. We just have different dynamics than you little humans. No need to be worryin’ so hard about it.”

John lets out a little breath, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. I just—if you ever  _ do  _ start rolling too rough,” he says, meeting your eyes, “let me know. If you need a place to stay for a little while, even if it’s just to get your feet underneath you again, you know where to find me. I’m sure my dad wouldn’t mind.”

Aw. Fuck. You gotta be a little touched by that. Ain’t often a lusus opens its doors to another wiggler, even if it’s just for a few days. “Shit, bro—thank you, for serious. That’s real nice of you. I’ll be sure to think on it.”

And think on it you do. You think on it a good deal more than you ought, if you want to keep Nuodel away from Karkat. If she found out you’d even  _ thought  _ of leaving—you bristle to think what could happen. Your jaw aches. No. No, you can’t leave here. Besides, once your few days at John’s were up, where the fuck would you go? And what would happen to your clade?

No. You gotta stay. Ain’t no way around that. Besides, Karkat ain’t been hurt anymore, since his row with that mad purpleblood. His wounds are healing up nice, and he’s well-fed and sheltered and safe. You couldn’t ask anymore, where he’s concerned, and he’s what matters. You can deal with your drowning and your rages and your withdrawals, as long as it means he’s okay.

You’re still workin’ on making him okay inside, though. His walls are built high and sturdy, and for the life of you, you have the hardest time trying to get inside. He won’t mention his lusus, won’t mention his kill, won’t let you at his horns. It hurts your heart, but you suppose you can’t blame him. Those are painful things to think on, and you don’t  _ want  _ him to be in pain, but—but it feels wrong, him hiding away from them like he does. What do you know, though? You ain’t the smart one. So you don’t push. All in good time, you figure. He’ll come around when he’s ready.

You  _ do  _ tell him about John’s offer (sick of secrets, you), but he agrees with you (thank messiahs). There would be nowhere for you to go after his house, and you can’t very well abandon your entire clade. You’re safe here. You’re okay. Not happy all the time, but then, who is? It’s alright. You’ll be alright.

At the very end of May, Sollux has a birthday. You all go to the hospital and get to meet his little palemate. She smells like illness, like death, and it twists you up to be near her. There’s something haunted and old in her eyes, but she smiles and speaks kindly to you and it’s a good day, really. There’s bright yellow cake and vanilla ice cream, blue and red streamers and balloons that make your voice go fuckin’ high-pitch when you suck out of them, and you and Nepeta have yourselves a real good-ass time competing in a rap-off in your funny high-pitched voices. You think Equius and Karkat also have a good time bitchin’ at the two of you about it, though they’ll never admit it.

You wonder when your own birthday is, and Karkat’s, too. You ask for Sollux’s help on the math, and he tells you that yours would correlate to the sixth day of January, and Karkat’s will be on the sixth of July. You might’ve missed yours this year, but you damn well aren’t going to miss his, and you’ve already got yourself some  _ ideas.  _

May flowers into June, and the world swelters. You spend most of your time indoors, because the outside is just too fuckin’ hot. Karkat don’t seem to mind it as much—seems maybe even to enjoy it—but just goin’ out to eat, even when the sun’s set, leaves you panting and drenched in sweat. It’s not as hot as an Alternian summer during the dim season, but damn if it still doesn’t leave you exhausted and lazy. You feel like you’re in a stupor, half the time, and even off your sopor you don’t feel as energetic. You just kinda sprawl out on the cool tile of Nuodel’s ablutions block, letting it leech the heat from your skin as you growl and snap at things that aren’t there.

The summer storms are the worst, you think. They crash and boom overhead, loud enough you can hear ‘em even on the first floor. Pisses you off something fierce when you’re sober—sets you claw at the walls, gnashing your lips bloody with your sharpened fangs. Once, though, Karkat takes you outside with him in a thunderstorm. The rain drenches the both of you to the bone in seconds, and you feel so impossibly  _ small  _ beneath the growling, flashing clouds. But Karkat puts his tiny, damp hand in yours and breathes in the warm air and looks  _ happy,  _ and well—

Well, you still don’t like storms, but maybe they aren’t all bad.

Near the end of the month, Sollux changes. You knew he would—could scent it on him for nights beforehand, bitter almonds. He grows quiet and uninterested and irritable, and you see less of him then you’d like to. It pains at you to watch him suffer so, but for the life of you, you can’t think of a damned thing that would help him. Karkat seems unhappy with the change, too, and he tries to coax Sollux into hanging out with you and your friends more often, but he is regularly snapped at and turned down. Still, though, Karkat keeps trying, and you admire him for that. Your brother is a tenacious motherfucker.

June bleeds into July, and you seriously hate this weather,  _ shit.  _ On the bright side, your littlest brother’s birthday is coming up shortly, and you even managed to work around the scheduling with Nuodel. You go sober for three weeks instead of the normal two, just so you can have off a week early to be with your best friend. 

Then your carefully-crafted plans get  _ fucked all to hell,  _ because  _ of course they motherfucking do.  _

On your last day of training, just before the third day of July, you’re fighting Nuodel. She’s stronger than you, faster, thicker-skinned, and she damn well knows it. But you’ve learned a trick or two in the last few months, and you’ve got no qualms about using them. You land a few blows—a hard crack of your club across her elbow, your claws across her chin hard enough to bleed, the slam of your foot into her gut. You’re a fast learner, when you’re sober—you’ve got to be, if you want to keep her from goring you.

But  _ today.  _ Oh,  _ today.  _ You trick her up with a bit of footwork—hook a toe behind her ankle, yank her leg out from under her to set her off-balance, and raise your club high above her head. It’s a fool’s move—leaves your throat and stomach all open for her claws—but you’ve never been the most cautious, in a rage. Besides, you’ve got gravity on your side, and you’re sure you can smash her fucking  _ brains out  _ before she guts you, and  _ motherfuck,  _ you ain’t thinking. You slam your club down, hungry for her blood, for her brains all crushed and her skull scattered across the room. You would’ve killed her. You  _ wanted  _ to—and she knew it as well as you did.

But, gravity or not, she’s older and stronger and sweeps more experienced than you. She leans back, puts her head out of your club’s reach and takes the blow against her collarbone, instead. You hear a  _ crack,  _ hear her shriek, and then she’s coming up, eyes blazing red. Her ‘voodoos surround you in a haze of black fear (your inhibitors only stop what goes  _ out,  _ not what comes  _ in)  _ and you make the goddamn mistake of stumbling. Her hand seizes around your throat, claws digging into the size of your neck, and you yowl and drop your clubs so you can tear your own claws down her forearm. Her hide is thicker than yours, though, and you only leave a few thin cuts. For a second, looking at her—at her blazing eyes and wicked teeth, at the shadows her fearmongering puts behind your eyes—you think you’re gonna die. 

But then, you’ve thought that many a time, since meeting her.

She doesn’t kill you, though. Nah. That’d be too easy. She slams you back against the wall instead, ignores the eyes of your siblings as they glance in your direction. Her breath hisses between her teeth, cold and terrible. “Hey, Makara,” she says. “You wanna hear a story?”

You, far past words in your rage, snarl low at her. It’s choked by her hand around your throat. You can’t breathe. You can’t breathe, fuck, you can’t breathe you can’t you can’t you can’t—you scrabble at her with your feet, but she crushes you tighter to the wall and you can’t get any room to strike at her. She eases back just enough to let you pull in fast, dizzying breaths. Keeps you weak, keeps you panicking.

“It’s an Earth story—from one of their silly fucking religions,” she continues, her voice settling. Her eyes glitter with messiahs’ dark mirth. “It’s about this shepherd—you know what that is? Of course not. You’re too fucking stupid for that. A shepherd is a human that takes care of this fluffy little pieces of shit called sheep. Now these sheep, they’re useful—produce wool, keep the humans warm—but goddamn are they  _ stupid.  _ They don’t know how to defend themselves, so the shepherd does it for them. But sometimes, see, these sheep don’t realize what the shepherd is doing for them and they wander off.”

You tip your head back against the wall, try to ease the pressure on your throat. The smell of her is sick and sweet in your nostrils, and you can feel your own ‘voodoos thrashing against the bounds of the inhibitors. Some of them escape—try to thread themselves around her, and she crushes them with her own. Your mind hurts. It feels like drowning.

“So this shepherd, he goes after this little wandering sheep. He knows he’s responsible for it, even if  _ it  _ doesn’t know that. He finds the sheep—it’s too stupid to get very far—and then you know what he does?” She leans close, growls against your ear and you shake and choke and try to breathe. “He  _ breaks  _ that sheep’s  _ motherfucking  _ legs so it can’t wander anymore.”

She moves, then—leans back away from you and you are so busy gasping in air that you don’t retreat the way you goddamn should. She draws her foot back, whiplash quick, and slams her big combat boot into the front of your left knee. You hear the crack, hear the tear from somewhere deep in your limb, before you feel it. Your knee buckles under you and you slam into the floor, hissing. Catch yourself on your hands and start to scramble back onto your feet, to get  _ back to the MOTHERFUCKING FIGHT,  _ but—

But your left leg won’t cooperate. It won’t let you move it where it needs to go, much less put your weight on it. You try, once, lean your weight against that side once you manage to drag yourself into a crouch using the wall—

You try once and only once, and then the pain hits you and you’re screaming and screaming and  _ screaming— _

You are so motherfucking grateful when the world darkens and you’re gone. 

When you wake again, the world feels slower and softer. Sopor. You’ve gotten sopor, somehow. You’re lying flat on your back, which is great, except it makes you feel way too vulnerable and oh also you hate it. You go to sit up, and then—stop, because you can’t, really. There are thick bands around your wrists, your ankles, your chest and hips. You are trapped. You are trapped and vulnerable and the world is a terrible, hurting place. Panic is a slow, worming thing through the sopor, and it crashes over you in waves. Dimly, you realize there are people talking over you as you do your best to not hyperventilate yourself back to unconsciousness. 

“—the necessary equipment! He needs to go to the city’s—”

“No.” Nuodel’s voice, cold and hard. You dig your claws into the mattress beneath you, squeezing your eyes shut and remembering you can breathe. “Absolutely not. It was a training accident, and it’s a fucking tragedy, but it’s not worth exposing our entire operation over. Do you  _ know  _ what would happen if the church—”

“Stop, both of you.” Oh. Oh, you recognize that voice.  _ Karkat.  _ You could almost cry with relief. “Get out.”

“Listen, I know your palemate is—” Nuodel starts, but Karkat cuts her off with a deep, rolling snarl—fuck, you don’t think you’ve heard him make that sound since his lusus died. 

“I said  _ get the fuck out,”  _ Karkat hisses, his voice cold. “Now. He’s waking up and the last thing he needs is you two assholes arguing over his head.”

You hear Nuodel muttering with someone else, and then a pair of footsteps fades away from you and the world is quiet again. You hear something shift beside you, and then you hear Karkat’s little marching steps come closer to you. You dare to crack an eye open and you see him leaned over you, his face creased and worn with worry. His ears flick in surprise when he sees you watching him, and he ducks down to your level, resting his chin on the mattress next to your elbow—making himself small, safe.

You could cry from love of him, so you do. Soft, shaking sobs rack you, and he croons and shooshes and touches your face gently, so fucking gently.

“Hey, hey, shh, you’re alright, you’re okay,” he murmurs. Fits his palm against your cheek and paps, slow and steady, gives your mind a pattern to latch onto. “You’re safe, I promise. I’m here now. I’ll make sure nobody hurts you.”

“Nuodel—Nuodel—” you choke through your tears. Squeeze your eyes shut and flatten your ears, shaking shaking shaking. 

“She’s not taking you back, shhh. You’re gonna stay with me until you’re healed, don’t worry. I won’t let her touch you.” He leans his forehead against yours, soothes you with the warm scent of him. He lowers his voice, then asks, “Did she do this?”

You gasp in a breath, strain against your bonds to hold him and wail when you can’t. He clicks soothingly, fusses with the bands until you can sit up—though he leaves your hips and ankles tied down—and hugs you close to him. What the fuck are you supposed to tell him? What did  _ Nuodel _ tell him? You don’t want to lie to him, you don’t want to lie,  _ you don’t want to lie— _

“Accident,” you lie, squeezing him tightly. “Fuckin’—shitty-ass training accident.”

Because you can’t—you can’t tell him what that bitch did without him wanting to leave, and if she hears he wants to leave, she’ll—she’ll—

You shudder and sob into his shoulder, and he rocks you, rubs big, slow circles across your back until you can breathe again. Then sits back and cradles your face in his hands, just looks at you with eyes made of iron, and you lean into him and close your eyes and don’t look back. “I love you,” you whisper, like that will ever make up for the weight of your sin. “I love you so much, Karkat.”

“I love you too.” He rests his forehead against yours, burning hot like a brand. “So much, you goddamned wreck. Here—here, fuck, sit back. Let’s get you cleaned up and I’ll tell you what the medics told me.”

You sit back, sniffling, and he carefully wipes your face with a washcloth. You decaptchalogue your paints, uncapping the white, but Karkat rests his hands on yours. You glance up at him, clicking quietly in acknowledgement. “What’s wrong, brother?”

“Nothing,” Karkat murmurs. “Just—can I?”

Your paint feels like a duty to you now, and no more. Gone are the soft colors and jokes and happiness of your religion. Everything about it has been tainted by blood and fear, and you’re loathe to let Karkat take part in it. When he asks so sweet at you, though, how in the fuck could you ever tell him no? You nod solemnly, hand him the containers, and close your eyes. 

He works carefully, quietly, his square little fingers gentle and firm against your skin. You’re not surprised that he’s memorized the pattern—he does have to gaze on it every night, after all—but you are surprised he wants anything to do with it. He does loathe your religion so. You’re beginning to think maybe he was right to. 

Once he’s finished, you captchalogue your paints again and reach for the bonds on your hips. Karkat sets a hand on your shoulder. “Hey,” he says, drawing your attention back to him. “If you take those off you have to be careful, okay? Your left leg is—really fucked up, man. You can’t jostle it around or you’ll fuck it up more.”

You nod, unbuckling the straps at your hips while Karkat unbuckles the ones around your ankles. Your pants have disappeared to who the fuck knows where, and your left knee is swelling up something mighty fucking fierce. It’s all  _ shades  _ of purple already, bruised to hell and back. “The fuck’s wrong with it?” you ask, running your fingers cautiously across the taut skin. It doesn’t hurt the way it did, for which you’re grateful, though you don’t dare move it. 

“The medics think you probably tore a tendon, and your kneecap is fractured. There’s nothing they can do for it here, and even if there was, none of them are experienced enough with troll anatomy to try. Apparently the structure of the human knee is different, and—” Karkat shrugs. “They don’t know, essentially. They couldn’t even put a name to whatever the fuck is wrong with your knee.”

“So is it just gonna—heal up?” you ask. “Like a sprain?”

Karkat sighs softly, combing his fingers through your hair. Fuck, that feels nice. “They don’t know. They said it might, since you’re a highblood and basically an indestructible war machine, but they’re not sure. Worst case scenario, it doesn’t heal until you pupate.”

“So what does that mean? It not healing? I’m still gonna be able to—walk, aren’t I?” you ask, remembering the way your leg had gone out from under you with a sense of deep unease. A crippled troll is a dead troll. Easily hunted, easily abused, easily culled—and no help at all when it comes to defending their territory or their quadrants. (Although you  _ do  _ think of Tavros, and you feel a little better.) 

“Yeah, definitely,” Karkat says, which floods you with relief. “If you take good care of it while it’s healing, you’ll be perfectly fine. You just might have a limp, is all.”

“A limp?” you frown. A limp isn’t  _ crippling,  _ but it’s not something you want to risk. What if your leg goes out from under you in the middle of a fight? “They can’t do anything to keep that from happening?”

“Surgery,” Karkat offers, sighing softly and pressing a kiss to your temple. “But—not here. That’s what the fuckers are arguing about. You’d need to go to the hospital, and Nuodel doesn’t want to risk anybody finding out about you or the gang by doing that. If that’s what you want, though—” He leans his head on your shoulder, wrapping an arm around your waist. “I’ll get you to the hospital, and fuck what they want. Just say the word and we’re gone.”

You’re shaking your head before he finishes, kissing at his hair. “No. No, that’s fine, best friend. I can deal with a little limp for a few sweeps. Won’t do me no harm, especially—” You nuzzle up against him, bite softly beneath his chin, nice and submissive. He obligingly turns his head, rubs his scent off against your hair and horns, rumbles low in his chest in what way makes a little thrill run right down your spine, makes you want to show him all your softest parts and obey. “—not when I’ve got such a fierce, badass little palemate to protect me.”

“Protect you.” Karkat makes a derisive little sound, and you wince for a second, thinking he means it at you—and then you glance up, see the guilt in the set of his shoulders and the dark of his eyes, and know well who he means it at. “Yeah. Because I’ve done such a great job of that so far.”

“Hey, hush up, there,” you warn, butting your head against his. “You done as much as you could, best friend. Ain’t no need to go gettin’ harsh with yourself.”

You expect him to argue, and he takes a deep breath like he’s getting ready to, and then just kinda—deflates, slumping in on himself. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess. Sorry.”

Doesn’t sound like he means it at all. Stubborn fucker. “Brother—”

“Look.” He stands up, wiping his palms on his jeans. You can’t bite back a whine (don’t leave me  _ don’t leave me when I’m weak, palemate—)  _ and he reaches out, resting a hand between your horns. “It’s okay. I know this wasn’t my fault, and I also know that you are  _ way  _ too out of it to jam right now. Do you know how many painkillers they have you pumped up on right now? All of them. All of the painkillers. So I’m gonna go talk to the medics and see what  _ I  _ need to do to keep you from getting a limp without surgery, if that’s at all possible. I’ll be right back, okay?”

And so he is. You spend two nights in the medic’s office, and Karkat doesn’t leave your side but to piss and eat (and that last only when you bully him into it). When he’s gone for dinner the first night, Nuodel seizes the opportunity to visit you—makes sure you know this was an  _ accident  _ and nothing else, and what the fuck were you expecting, threatening her the way you did? You guess she’s right, at least a little. You did, you discover right then, manage to break her collarbone. You’re kinda glad about that, though you sure as fuck don’t tell her.

Your clade comes to visit you in the office, too, and they’re good company. Sollux lets you play on his Switch, Equius compliments your dedication to your noble training (one of the few compliments you’ve ever gotten from him), and Nepeta snuggles up in your lap and lets you play catch-the-tail until you’re both giggling and Karkat looks utterly exasperated. 

Once your second night is up, the medics hand Karkat a gray duffel bag like they gave you when  _ he  _ was hurt. You chuckle a little at the familiarity of it, and Karkat scowls at you. The medics wrap your knee tight in a bandage, then give you crutches and let you hobble yourself back to your block. It’s a painful ordeal (they’d cut back on most of your painkillers, though they left you a bottle of one type to tide you over) but Karkat is there the whole time, fussing and helping as best he can. You think he’d have carried you, if he thought he could do it. 

Back in your block, Karkat settles you into the pile and removes the bandage, replacing it with a cold compress instead. He pads anxiously around the block, doing little nothings—organizing your clothes, tidying the pile around you, making sure your crutches are the right height—until your whining wins out and he comes to curl up next to you. There’s a sense of rightness in that, in having your palemate so close as hand when you’re hurt. 

You heal fast, which is one of few highblood qualities you’re thankful for. Once the swelling in your knee goes down, the medics fit you with a simple black brace to keep you from fucking it up any further. You stay on the crutches a few weeks more, keeping your weight off of it, before they finally allow you to walk. You do have one hell of a limp, but you expect that’ll fade back—and indeed it does. Karkat rips Nuodel a new one when she suggests you go back to training once you can walk, and she doesn’t ask again until it’s been a solid month. Your knee feels hells of motherfucking better, though you don’t dare walk without the brace. Your lungs even feel better, since you’ve gone a month without drowning them. 

John, needless to say, is significantly distressed when he finds out you’ve been hurt. He offers his home to you again, and again, you turn him down—though it does pain you something fierce to do so, and Karkat listens as you do with his shoulders slumped and his ears drooping. “I wish we could go somewhere else,” he admits to you that morning. “I wish we could take our friends and go somewhere, fucking anywhere, other than here.”

_ Me too,  _ you want to admit. Want to admit it more than anything—but to do so would be to encourage his fantasies, and to do that would put him in more danger than you care to think on. “It’s not so bad here, best friend,” you tell him instead. He hums softly at you and doesn’t agree, but neither does he disagree, so you consider it a victory.

But in all the excitement, July runs away from you, and you miss Karkat’s birthday. He didn’t even  _ know  _ it was his birthday, but you admit your guilt to him in a jam near the end of the month  anyway. He just laughs and holds you and kisses your cheek. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re not like humans, anyway. Why the fuck should we celebrate our birthdays every year? We can celebrate them every sweep, as is  _ natural.  _ And I’ll make sure we celebrate yours, too.”

And so it is that July gives way to August. You go back to training with Nuodel, though you’re more cautious around her, now—even when you’re sober. Your fear of her is well-learned, now, written deep into your bones. One day, though, near the end of your training (on a sopor day), she takes you back to her room. 

“Listen,” she says, and you flick an ear towards her to show you are, in fact, listening. “I’ve got another story to tell you, Makara.” You flinch back. You didn’t like her first story  _ at all,  _ and she laughs when she notices the look on your face. “Nah, it’s not bad. I won’t hurt you, fucker. Sit down.”

So you sit down, stretching your bad knee out in front of you ‘cause it hurts less that way. Nuodel sits down across from you, her legs crossed in front of her, leaning back against her ‘coon. She takes a deep breath, leaning her head back, more solemn than you’re used to.

“I’m gonna tell you why I give a shit about you, Makara,” she begins. You wish, to be perfectly honest, that she didn’t give so much of a shit. “You know the Grand Highblood. You know the church. You know your motherfucking kin, don’t you, little purpleblood?”

“I do, sister.”

“But you do not know the church as it was sweeps ago. You were born under a weak reign, whether you know it or not. Our Grand Highblood has changed. He used to crush planets, to control galaxies, to cull by the million. He brought the family great glory and honored the messiahs with everything he had.”

“Amen,” you agree quietly, touching your knuckles to your forehead. You used to worship the Grand Highblood near as much as you worshipped your messiahs, blasphemy or not, but now—now, the thought of him leaves a sour taste in your mouth. 

“And then there was an uprising. This was when trolls still lived on Alternia, you understand, before they built the holy fleet and took to the stars. No one lives who remembers that uprising, save the Grand Highblood and the Empress herself. But whatever the cause of it, it changed the Grand Highblood. He grew weaker, until he was nothing more than the Empress’ lapdog. The church stagnants under his rule. You know what that means?”

You shake your head. You don’t, and you don’t  _ want  _ to.

“It means it’s time for  _ another  _ uprising.” Nuodel grins, her teeth gleaming. “An uprising in the church, little Makara. This Grand Highblood needs must be overthrown and replaced by a more powerful predecessor, just as every Grand Highblood before him was.”

You glance up, startled.  _ She  _ wants to overthrow the  _ Grand Highblood?  _ One of the most ancient, ruthless creatures in this universe or any other? She’s—kidding, right? “That is—the way of things,” you admit, trying your best to be cautious about what you say. “But the Heir—”

“Ah, yes.” Nuodel sighs gustily. “The Heir does complicate things. No other Highblood has ever lived long enough to name their descendent as heir—which is yet another testament to how old this Highblood’s rule has gotten. It goes against the natural order of things. But I think I have a solution.”

You squirm, hesitating. You thought it was bad enough when Noir ordered a ship of purplebloods brought to Earth, but this—this is much worse. “What?”

“You.” She reaches forward, cups your chin. You try not to grimace—or laugh, because now you’re  _ sure  _ she’s fucking crazy. “You’re going to defeat the Heir and take his place. You’re going to weasle your way into the Grand Highblood’s good graces, learn his secrets, the way he fights, and once you’ve done that, you’ll challenge him for the throne. But—” She pats your cheek. “We’ve got a ways to go before that. There’s no way you could defeat the Heir right now. But we’ll get you trained up in a few sweeps, don’t you worry.”

“Right,” you say, because there’s not even a point in arguing with her delusions, you figure. “Only, I don’t think ‘Heir’ is a title you can win by fighting. It’s a bloodright, ain’t it?”

“Oh, Makara.” She stands up, thumping you gently between the horns. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a stupider highblood. Never mind. That’s a long-term plan, anyhow. I just wanted you to know what we were working towards—I’m not doing all of this to be cruel, you know. I’m making you  _ stronger.” _

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Of course, sister.”

“Get outta here. Back to your palemate, now. I’ll see you in a couple of days, and come ready to swim.”

You duck out of her block as fast as you can, mind spinning. She is so definitely insane. You rush back to your block, pacing anxiously until Karkat comes home. You tell him all about what she said, and he throws his head back and laughs his ass off. 

“You? Defeat the  _ Grand Highblood?  _ Oh, no offense, but that’s not happening,” he says, and you sigh, glad  _ someone  _ agrees with you about the madness of Nuodel’s plan. “Let her think what she wants, I guess. You can’t cure batshit fucking insane. And there is  _ no way  _ I am letting you go anywhere near the church’s fleet to fight anyone, ever, so  _ there.” _

Satisfied with this, you carry on as per usual. Let Nuodel think what she wants—a plan like that is never going to pass. (Besides, by the time she thinks you're strong enough to defeat the Heir, you'll be strong enough to defeat  _her.)_

Nepeta has her birthday near the middle of the month, and then August rolls over into September and the world begins to cool again. September turns into October, and October into November, when Equius has his birthday. There’s also a holiday called  _ Thanksgiving  _ in November _ ,  _ where you get to gorge yourself on turkey and mashed potatoes and all  _ kinds  _ of great food. It a most miraculous holiday, and your clade celebrates it to the fullest, though you’re not  _ actually  _ sure what you’re celebrating, except for the food. Sollux changes after Thanksgiving, too, slamming back into his honey-scented self with ruthless energy and abandon. 

Then comes December, and the humans string bright lights and gleaming decorations up all over the city. “This is Christmas,” Nepeta tells you, her eyes shining. “It’s my favorite holiday. It’s totally  _ awesome.”  _

And she tells you all about Christmas—about lights and trees and snowmen, about Santa and presents and milk and cookies. You don’t actually get to  _ celebrate  _ Christmas, though, being as how you’re sober when it rolls around and so you’re huddled up on the floor of Nuodel’s ablutions block throwing your guts up. You don’t actually know that it’s Christmas day until your Karkat comes to visit you.

He sits beside you, lets you rest your head in his lap and hurt. His fingers are small and sturdy, smoothing your hair back. It’s gotten long enough to brush your ears, now—a little mop of dark, unruly curls. Karkat’s hair, too, has gotten significantly longer. He’s not quite back to his fluffy self, but he’s getting there, and it makes you happy to see.

“It’s Christmas today,” he tells you, rubbing circles into your temples what  _ almost  _ make your headache go away. 

“Is it?” You glance up at him through slitted eyes. The lights are too bright. “I didn’t know. Fuck. Is it nice? Do you like it?”

“Mm-hm. Thanksgiving was better, though.”

“How come?”

“Because we got to spend it together.”

You hum, a little smile on your face, and hide in the safety of his warm belly. He holds you as long as he can, pets your hair and your face and your side, until you feel the heat of your rage rising up again and have to tell him to go. He leaves easier than he did the first few times, used to it by now, but you do still regret seeing him go. Now more than ever, you crave your moirail, and it grates against every instinct you have to let him leave.

But it grates against you more to imagine what you could do to him if he stayed.

January marks the beginning of what humans call the New Year. It  _ also  _ marks your  _ birthday.  _ You get snapchats from John and Tavros wishing you well, and your friends throw you a  _ bitchtits  _ party. There’s chocolate cake and raspberry ice cream and Faygo and all  _ sorts  _ of colorful decorations, and Karkat piles you something  _ fierce  _ that morning. “Happy seventh sweep, you utterly pitiful bastard,” he mumbles through his kisses, hot little hands tight on your horns, and this sweep is off to a good,  _ good  _ start.

February comes next, and with it, Valentine’s Day. Nepeta, still stubbornly nursing her flush-crush on Karkat, buys him another box of dark chocolate. This time he acknowledges it—tells her  _ thank you, _ all flustered and red to the shoulders, and you are so  _ proud  _ of him. You paint him another picture: this one is a blotch of his color, burning shamelessly red, surrounded by yellows and blues and greens and purples. Your clade. Your family. He smiles big enough to break your heart, peppers your face with his kisses, and hangs it up next to the first picture you made him. 

He gets you another picture for your locket, one you’d taken just a few months prior—you and your clade all grinning up at the camera, you givin’ Karkat bunny ears between his cute little horns. Nepeta is sitting on Equius’ shoulders, beaming at the camera with all her sharp little fangs. Sollux is flipping the world off, but there’s an amused little smile on his face as he does. Your heart feels so fucking warm. You slip the photo into your locket, though you keep the replaced picture carefully in your sylladex. He takes you out on a date, too—you go to Los Tules and eat your goddamn weight in tacos and sopapilla, and then he takes you to the park and the two of you slow-dance to the shitty music on his phone, the stars whirling away above you in their endless, unstoppable paths.

Then there is March, and in March, you make the worst goddamn mistake of your life. 


	29. gamzee makara, you goddamn piece of shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: blood, violence, injury, asphyxiation, 
> 
> chapter tracks: “spanish sahara” by foals + “choke” by i don’t know how but they found me

Over a year. That’s how long you stay with the gang.  That’s how long you let them suck your blood from you, pawn it off like the freakish oddity it is. That’s how long you stay with your clade, training and laughing and loving. That’s how long you let Nuodel twist and tear your moirail into something he was never meant to be.

Later, when you look back, you will never forgive yourself for staying so long.

In March, the world changes.

It was bound to happen eventually, you guess. In fact, you’re surprised it hadn’t happened already—you live with the largest group of purplebloods in the universe, save for the holy fleet, and there’s only so much assigned moirails can do. Eventually, one of them was bound to snap. You only regret that it had to happen so close to you, b ut that’s Karkat Vantas’ shitty luck.

(What makes it worse, though, is the constant nagging in the back of your head. Something is wrong. Something is wrong and you don’t know  _ what.  _ Your link curls uneasily within your mind, no matter how many walls you put up around it.)

It’s a purpleblood you don’t even know the name of—just a wiggler. Younger than Gamzee, probably. You’re in the kitchen preparing lunch when he bursts through the door, snarling, the air around you thickening with cold fear. His ‘voodoos aren’t much worse than Gamzee’s are, when they’re suppressed, so you’re not thrown—Nepeta and Equius, however, recoil with pale faces and bristling hair. 

“Fuck, come on,” you hiss, grabbing both of their hands and yanking them towards the other side of the kitchen. There’s only one entrance, and right now it’s being blocked by a very angry subjugglator that you have absolutely  _ no  _ desire to fight with. As soon as you move, the subjugglator lunges after you, an awful snarl rattling in his throat. The movements puts him clear of the entrance, and you surge forward, out of the kitchen and into the hallway. 

(Something is terribly, terribly wrong. You don’t want to, you don’t want to hurt them, you DON’T MOTHERFUCKING WANT TO—)

Outside of the kitchen, several adult purplebloods are milling, their ears pricked and their eyes gleaming. Not a single one moves to stop the deranged fucking wiggler chasing you, although you hear several of them growl as you dart past them. Nepeta and Equius stay close on your heels as you plunge upstairs, determined to get to your block and put a door between you and Mr. Crazy-Ass Highblood. You may be disillusioned in most things, but despite common belief, you  _ know  _ you are very small and weak, compared to highbloods, and you’ve no desire to have that proven to you again. 

You’re halfway up the stairs when you hear a crash, and you whip around in time to see the wiggler pinning Equius against the railing. You know Equius is more than strong enough to push the fucker off, but you  _ also  _ know Equius wouldn’t lay a hand on a highblood without orders from a seadweller. Fucking useless—but he’s still your friend, and  _ how dare anyone lay a claw on your  _ friends—

You whirl around, snarling, but Nepeta gets to the highblood before you do. She’s equipped her claws, and she tears them down the highblood’s back. He shrieks and twists away from Equius, lashing out with terrible speed. He catches Nepeta by the throat and she dangles there for a moment, tearing savagely at his arm, before she slashes out with her clawkind. The gleaming silver blades give her just enough reach—the highblood is forced to drop her before she gouges his eyes out. 

(you want to stop now YOU WANT TO STOP you want to stop please PLEASE)

She hits the ground moving, surging forward and knocking the highblood’s legs out from under him. The two of them tumble down the stairs in a knot of flashing teeth and terrible snarls, and you and Equius lunge after them. To your surprise, Equius is growling—a desperate, deep noise from low in his chest. His shoulders are stained with blue blood where the highblood clawed him, but his eyes are for Nepeta only. 

The highblood slams Nepeta into the ground, snarling. Nepeta is lithe and wickedly fast, but the highblood must outweigh her by at least fifty pounds—he pins her shoulders to the ground and goes for her throat, his fangs glinting in the low light. You shriek, a noise of  _ terrorangerstop— _ not your clade, he can’t hurt your clade, he  _ can’t— _

(...)

(WHAT was that SOUND)

You slam into the highblood’s back and sink your claws into his sides, snarling. You sink your teeth into the back of his neck before he can move to defend himself, raking your claws down his ribs. His hide is as wiggler-thin as yours, and you get a visceral sense of satisfaction from feeling him tear apart beneath you. Violence is written in your bones, your blood, and holy fuck do you  _ feel it now.  _ Your fear is momentarily drowned by a sense of raw, overwhelming anger. How dare they hurt your clade, how dare they hurt your friends,  _ how dare they— _

You open your jaw just enough to press further into this monster’s cold flesh, clamp down and feel the muscles of his neck spasm beneath your teeth. He howls and rears backwards, away from Nepeta (thank god,  _ thank god).  _ There’s olive blood smeared around his mouth, on his claws, and you look desperately for Nepeta. Is she okay? Holy fuck, is she  _ alive?  _

But the highblood grabs you—sinks his claws into your shoulder and tries to tear you off and you yowl but clamp down  _ harder, harder.  _ If he tears you off,  _ you’ll take his flesh with you.  _ You lock your jaw and he shrieks in frustration, backing up until he can slam you against the wall. You see Equius lunge for Nepeta, looming over her like a wall of stone, and you shudder in relief. She’s safe. She’s safe, you did your job. 

Then the highblood goes for your eyes, his vicious orange claws passing inches in front of them, and you’re forced to unlock your jaw and release him. You drop to the ground and leap around him, placing yourself between him and your clade. There’s a low, unconscious snarl rolling in your chest and you curve your claws at your sides,  _ burning.  _ Let him try to get past you, let him try to hurt your clade,  _ let him try.  _

(your palemate)

(YOUR KARKAT)

(he’s calling you)

(YOU’RE BURNING)

The highblood rolls his jaw back, shows you a mouthful of gleaming fangs. Olive blood crusts around his lips and you hiss. Fuck this. Fuck  _ him.  _ You lunge forward before he can, lashing your claws at his eyes to send him stumbling backwards. He seizes your wrist in one cold hand and you feel his fingers start to tighten—it won’t take much before your wrist snaps, you know, so you act quickly. You flatten your ears and lunge forward, sinking your teeth into his fingers until they spasm and loosen—his other hand tears at your scalp, claws coming away with clumps of blood and hair. 

As soon as he releases you, you shake your head and spring back, snarling. The two of you circle each other, bristling and snarling. Around you, trolls are starting to gather, forming a knot of eager eyes and excited growls. Amongst them, you hear whispers. 

“...the fuck color is that brat bleeding? That’s not rust, is it?”

“—some kind of mutant, he has to be.”

“Well, the fuck does it matter? He won’t last long against a brother in holy rage. Make some good paint, though.”

You should be scared. Fuck that, you should be terrified.

You’re not. You’re just so—

(MOTHERFUCKING ANGRY)

(if she doesn’t get out of your way you’re going to KILL HER)

You lunge at the highblood again, determined not to let him put you on the defensive. You feint for his left shoulder and he falls for it (ha! fucking dumbass), leaning to defend that side as you switch mid-lunge to slam your shoulder into his left side. You manage to send him stumbling, and you seize those few seconds to decaptchalogue your sickle. You hook it around towards his ribs, but he moves like a whip, flinging himself away from you before you can even graze him with the blade. 

(where’s your palemate? WHERE IS HE?)

The highblood snaps his teeth at you, decaptchalouging his own weapon—an ornate dagger, gleaming with heavy purple jewels. It looks more fit for courting than for fighting, but then, you suppose you should never judge a book by its cover. The highblood darts forward and you brace, your eyes hungry for every move he makes, but he changes direction at the last second—heads for Nepeta and Equius, instead, and you panic and lunge heedlessly at him because he  _ cannot get near your injured clade _ . 

A clever ruse, that. You have to give the highblood that much.

He whips around as soon as you move towards him, slamming the hilt of the dagger into your jaw. You crash backwards, slamming into the floor with an angry cry and scrambling backwards as he prowls towards you, a leering grin on his face. 

(oh)

(THERE HE IS)

(he’s bleeding)

The highblood leaps at you, eyes blazing and dagger pointed at your throat. You lift your feet, ready to slam them into his stomach, to keep him from getting any closer to you than you want him to—and then—

(AND THEN)

A lean gray blur slams into the highblood, sending him crashing to the side. The air around you hums with fear, thick and black and cold. Your ears ring. You force yourself to your feet, shaking your head. Next to you, the highblood struggles desperately with a whiplash of tousled black hair and burning red eyes and deadly, gleaming horns—

Gamzee.

Your hindbrain preens upon recognizing him. Your palemate came for you. Your palemate will fight alongside you. Of course he will.  _ Of course.  _

Meanwhile, your forebrain, the actual intelligent thinking part of your person (respectively speaking, anyhow), screams that this is a Very Bad Thing, because Gamzee is supposed to be with Nuodel right now, which means Gamzee is very sober and very angry and oh yeah also currently in the middle of a fight with another very pissed-off highblood. You should probably calm him down. You should probably keep him from killing this fucker.

But then, you’ve never been very good at doing what you  _ should. _

You step towards the two grappling highbloods, fully intending on helping your palemate  _ tear this fucker to pieces,  _ when a hand seizes your shoulder. You whip around, snarling, and then freeze when you see Equius. His eyes are serious and solemn, and for a moment you panic—Nepeta. Something’s wrong with Nepeta, it has to be, but—

But no. Nepeta is standing a few feet behind him, swaying on her feet. There’s blood drying on her throat and claws, but her eyes are as fierce as you’ve ever seen them. You let out a soft breath, flicking your ears towards her, and she offers you a grim little smile. 

“Karkat,” Equius says, his voice urgent. “You must stop the highbloods. We can’t stay here any longer.” He glances behind you. As you follow his gaze, your stomach begins to drop. Trolls, adults and wigglers alike, are gathered around you in a thick circle. Several of the highbloods are watching you with bright, hungry eyes. You can feel your blood dripping down the back of your neck, a gory brand. “We need to—”

There’s a sudden  _ crack  _ behind you, and the room around you fills with the growls and snaps of excited trolls. The air is thick with the smell of a fight, of blood and violence and fury. You really, really don’t want to look behind you—but you do. You must. 

Gamzee staggers to his feet, his chest heaving and his teeth bared. His arms are slick with purple blood—his or the other highblood’s, you can’t tell. The shades are far too similar. There is also, disconcertingly, an amount of bronze blood clinging to his clothes and claws. His blue club lays on the ground next to the highblood. He licks his teeth, his eyes sweeping carelessly across you to focus on Equius.

“You,” he says, his voice soft—dreamy, almost. The air around you shimmers with shadows, with figments of unnameable fear. There are spiders crawling down your back. “Get your filthy hands off of my palemate, lowblood.”

You feel a shudder run through Equius—feel his fingers flex unconsciously against your shoulder. Unfortunately, it’s the shoulder the highblood had mauled several minutes earlier, and you—well, you make the mistake of flinching. It’s the mistake that changes the rest of your life. As soon as he sees you flinch, Gamzee snarls; the sound is low and wicked, full of more fury than you’ve ever heard from him before. It makes your hair bristle in instinctive terror and you reach for Equius’ hand, intent on moving away from him, but before you can—

Before you can, Gamzee lunges. He knocks you out of the way with an elbow and shoves his face into Equius’, ears pinned. His eyes are practically luminescent with his rage, vivid and red and awful, but there’s a grin on his face. Behind Equius, Nepeta tenses, her tail lashing. Gamzee says something too low for you to hear and Equius trembles, his hands clenching and unclenching. “Highblood—” he starts, but Gamzee cuts him off with a heavy snap of his teeth.

“I  _ said,”  _ Gamzee hisses, and then his voice jumps up, loud and cracking, “motherfucking KNEEL, MOTHERFUCKER.”

Equius’ knees buckle under him and he—

He kneels in front of Gamzee—in front of your soft, loveable palemate. He kneels and he trembles and doesn’t look away from Gamzee, not once. You step forward, because this is too fucking far,  _ fuck,  _ Gamzee won’t ever forgive himself for humiliating his friends like this, and then—oh, then.

Gamzee reaches forward, pushing a strand of Equius’ hair out of his face, as gentle as he’s ever been with you. He smiles lazily, eyes half-lidded. “Atta fucking boy,” he murmurs. For a second, you think he’s going to back off and you’re going to have to deal with him (and  _ fuck  _ are you terrified about that, terrified and okay maybe a little excited in a really sick way). But he doesn’t back off. Instead, he drops his hand and locks his fingers around Equius’ throat. Squeezes, and Equius makes a terrified choking noise and then you’re moving forward before you can think.

“Stop!” you and Nepeta both shout at the same time. She springs for her palemate and you spring for yours, your eyes wide and terrified. You rest your fingers over Gamzee’s, prying uselessly at them—he doesn’t even look at you, doesn’t even fucking  _ notice,  _ and Equius is turning blue, fuck,  _ fuck— _ “Let go, Gamzee, shit,  _ you have to let go—” _

“Get off!” Nepeta shouts, her fur bristling and her eyes wide and terrified. “Get off, Gamzee, fuck,  _ let go of him!  _ Karkat!”

“I’m  _ trying,”  _ you hiss, digging your claws into Gamzee’s fingers and tearing. Blood blooms under your touch and it makes you sick to see, but it makes you even sicker to see your moirail  _ murdering one of your friends in front of you.  _ “Gamzee Makara, you goddamn piece of shit, let go right now or I’ll  _ break your fucking neck!” _

You won’t, of course. You couldn’t. You couldn’t hurt him like that. You never could.

Maybe that's the problem.

Fortunately, Nepeta seems to have no such qualms. She shrieks—half terror and half fury, you think—and then lunges forward before you can stop her. There’s a flash of gleaming metal and then Gamzee rears backwards with a furious roar, his hands jerking away from Equius and towards his own face. Equius sucks in a ragged breath and coughs it back out, and then Nepeta leaps in front of him and shoves you away, baring her teeth. “Get away,” she hisses. “Get him away from us or I’ll kill him, Karkat.”

You know she’s not kidding.

You whirl around to face Gamzee, your own anger boiling in your chest. What the fuck.  _ What the fuck.  _ “You,” you say, a low snarl humming under your words. Gamzee shakes his head, dropping his hands to look at you. Three deep, terrible slashes mar his face, leaking blood across his eyes and lips and still,  _ still  _ he bares his teeth and growls. “Come with me.  _ Now.” _

You know he’ll follow you. You know you’re the reason he’s here, the reason he’s done this. It makes you sick to think about. You shove your way through the circle of trolls—it’s easier to do with an enraged highblood at your heels, you discover—and stomp up the stairs, towards your block. No one moves to stop you. Probably a wise fucking decision, since you think Gamzee would tear the head off of the next person who twitched in your direction.

Once you’re in your block, you slam your door behind you, flip the lock, and then proceed to have A Mental Breakdown. 

“What the  _ fuck,”  _ you say, and your voice is definitely way too hysterical to soothe the growling death-machine who’s taken to prowling around your block. “What the  _ fuck,  _ Gamzee.”

He turns towards you at the sound of his name, but his eyes are fathomless, burning embers. There’s animal cunning burning behind them—animal cunning, evil and sharp, and not a damn thing else. You need to calm him down. You can feel the truth of it in your bones, a implacable, ancient urge. He’s yours, your palemate, and he’s angry and you need to calm him down. But you are so—so—

So fucking  _ scared.  _

You told Gamzee that you trusted him, and you  _ do.  _ You’d trust your Gamzee with your life, but this? This terrible, awful, burning creature? This isn’t Gamzee. This is a savage, manipulative monster who’s willing to hurt his clademates, and if he can do  _ that  _ to Equius, then what—what will he do to you, if you piss him off?

Ah. A remarkable coward, you.

You drop into a corner, instead. Crouch with your back to the wall and breath in desperate, too-fast gulps as Gamzee resumes his agitated pacing. He keeps his head tilted in your direction, listening, and you are too terrified to move, to speak, to  _ think.  _ What are you going to do if he attacks you? You can’t hurt him. You  _ can’t,  _ you  _ won’t.  _

Your first kill flashes behind your eyes—red eyes and purple blood on your claws.

You bury your face in your hands, your shoulders shaking. You want to scream. You want to claw and kick and  _ scream,  _ but your palemate has you cornered and frozen and you dare not. Equius. Oh, god. Oh, fuck, Equius. He has to be okay. He  _ has  _ to be. Nepeta will fucking  _ kill  _ Gamzee if he’s not, and you  _ know  _ you have no right to stop her—

But you also know you’d damn well have to try.

(LITTLE LOWBLOOD FREAK)

A constant pressure in the back of your mind, claws in the link between you. A sense of constant, unyielding rage. You cannot possibly build your walls high enough.

(palemate)

You dig your own claws into your hair, a breathless sob shattering through your chest. You hear Gamzee’s pacing slow, and then his footsteps move towards you. You draw your knees to your chest and whine—a desperate plea for his pity.

(...hurt?)

Cold breath touches your hair, your neck. He smells like something sweet and sick and dark. He smells like Nuodel. You jump when you feel his mouth against your shoulder, imagining his horrible, serrated fangs sliding through your skin—but he only rasps his tongue across your wound, huffing quietly. You choke out another shuddering sob. You want to relax against him, you want to let him clean your wounds, there’s something viscerally right about that, but—

But  _ fuck,  _ you can barely keep from recoiling in revulsion when you think about what he did to Equius. To your clademate. To your  _ friend. _

(don’t be scared)

The ‘voodoos around you settle slightly, although they don’t vanish completely. They never do, when Gamzee is like this. There are too many holes in his mind. Too many holes, and the fear leaks right through them.

(I STOPPED THEM. I STOPPED ALL AS WOULD HARM)

(i heard you calling, palemate)

(I COULD HAVE KILLED THEM FOR YOU)

“Shut up,” you say. The words are strangled and weak. Your head throbs with the weight of his anger—at you, at everyone, at every _ thing _ . “Shut up, shut the fuck up, why the  _ fuck  _ would I want you to hurt Equius like that? How the  _ fuck  _ does that even make sense in your twisted-up freak pan, huh?”

(hurt my palemate)

(MY LOWBLOOD)

(you’re too weak)

(I MADE THEM STOP.)

Fuck. Oh, fuck you. He really doesn’t understand. He really is that fucking  _ dense.  _ You let out another (slightly hysterical) sob and he growls quietly, unhappily, drawing back slightly. You force yourself to look at him—glossy purple blood slicks his face, drips from his chin and onto your carpet. His eyes are half-lidded, although you think (please god) they’re less red than they were a few minutes ago.

(you’re scared of me) 

Gamzee tilts his head, his eyes studying you with that awful, awful animal cunning. His growl picks up, his lips drawing back from his wicked teeth. 

(what if i bit you, palemate?)

(WOULD YOU SCREAM?)

“Sopor,” you say, pointing back at your ‘coons. Gamzee’s eyes follow the movement, his ears flicking. “Sopor, now. Please.  _ Please,  _ Gamzee.”

For a second, you think he’s going to refuse. You think he’s going to turn back around and go for your throat, knives for teeth and coals for eyes and a monster where your moirail should be. His disgust, his disapproval, (his disappointment), wash over you in waves, and then he rises back to his feet and hops onto the edge of the ‘coon. He reaches in, scoops out a handful, and (FUCK THIS SHIT) licks it off of his palm. You can feel his craving for it in the back of your head, tied closely to a bone-deep sense of loathing. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. Gamzee flicks an ear towards you, already scooping out another handful. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Your guilt is a black, seething thing in the pit of your chest. This is your fault. Your fault for dragging him to this place, your fault for letting Nuodel warp him the way she has, your fault for not being  _ enough  _ to keep him calm and safe. What the fuck are you going to  _ do?  _ You can’t let this happen again, you can’t let this place destroy Gamzee any further, you can’t—

You can’t stay here.

The knowledge is solid, cold. You can’t stay in this place. It will  _ ruin  _ you. It will ruin your palemate, it will ruin your clade, it will ruin  _ everything,  _ if it hasn’t already. You don’t know where you’re going to go, after this. You don’t know how you’re going to survive. But right now, that ceases to matter, because staying here is worse than any alternative. At the very least, you know what your first step is going to be.

You pull your phone out of your pocket, fumbling to unlock it with shaking, blood-streaked fingers. You have a host of messages and missed calls from Sollux, and a single, brief message from Nepeta, flat and devoid of even her quirk.

AC: the purpleblood that gamzee attacked survived, and equius will be fine, but you need to leave, karkat. 

A flood of relief washes over you and you tip your head back against the wall, letting out a shaky sigh. Equius is fine. Equius is fine and your palemate isn’t a murderer (yet). Gamzee glances warily in your direction, still focused on his sopor. “You’re not a murderer,” you inform him, your voice rough. “Congratulations.”

(well)

(THAT’S JUST TOO BAD)

(i guess i’ll have to try motherfuckin’ harder next time)

“Fuck you,” you tell him, a smidgen of your confidence returning as he chows his way through the sopor. You know it’s wrong. You know watching your palemate ingest toxic substances should not make you feel better in any way, but—but it means  _ your  _ Gamzee is going to be back soon. You miss your Gamzee. You miss him  _ so fucking much.  _ “If you’ve got enough of your pan back to fathom sarcasm, maybe you can use some of it to clean your fucking face up. You’re bleeding all over the place.”

(don’t presume to order me)

(LOWBLOOD FREAK)

“Yeah, I haven’t heard that one before,” you mutter. Gamzee snaps his teeth—a heavy  _ clack  _ of noise that makes your hair stand on end—before slinking towards the ablutions block. As he cleans himself up, you take a deep breath and scroll through your messages until you find the one you need, the one that will change your life, for better or for worse.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling  ectoBiologist [EB]

CG: HEY, JOHN. DOES THAT OFFER A VISIT STILL STAND?


	30. intermission c

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go, guys! the last chapter of this fic! buckle up and i'll see you on the other side :D
> 
> warnings: self-loathing, blood/injury/mentions of violence
> 
> chapter tracks: “neptune” by sleeping at last and “obstacles” by syd matters

Your name is [REDACTED], but most people just call you THAT FUCKING ASSHOLE, which is also accurate. Right now, you are in the middle of being an asshole and arguing with your moirail, who is an also an asshole. Actually, most of your clademates are assholes. Birds of a feather, you guess. (You love all of your grumpy little assholes, though, each and every one.)

The point being, your moirail is very, very unhappy with you and very, very vocal about it. “—can’t believe you would even  _ think  _ about doing some motherfucking unfunny shit like that, you little fuckin’ dumbass, who the fuck even puts these ideas in your tiny motherfuckin’ head—god _ damn  _ I can’t stand you sometimes—”

You climb up his back to sit on his shoulders, rest your chin between his horns and pap-pap-pap his grumpy cute face with one gloved hand. There’s no point in trying to talk over him when he’s like this (he just gets louder). He wears himself out, eventually—gets tired of listening to himself rant and glares up at you instead, eyes orange and angry beneath a tangle of black curls. 

“Why are you like this?” he demands, though his voice is quieter, now—more resigned. You smooth your fingers along the jagged, sharp lines of his paint. “Always with this self-sacrificial bullshit—ain’t you had enough of martyrdom yet?”

“I don’t want to die,” you assure him, pressing a soft kiss to the base of one heavy horn. “I don’t want to be hurt. This isn’t  _ martyrdom,  _ you dumbass—it’s just a job. A job to a  _ very  _ safe planet full of  _ very  _ squishy, harmless creatures. It’ll be easy.”

“If it’s so easy, why do  _ you  _ have to do it?” he grumbles, flattening his ears. You tweak the tip of one and he growls irritably at you. “Anybody else could go and accomplish the same thing.”

“Probably,” you agree. “But I want to meet the people there, and I’ve been cooped up on this ship for the last sweep—not that it’s not a great ship, but I want to  _ explore. _  I can’t stand being held in one place. You know that, G.”

He sighs, his shoulders slumping. You hug his horns. “Yeah. I know. Fuck me, I know.”

“And you know I love being with you, you know I love being on this ship, but I can’t  _ always  _ stay here. That’s too much like being kept in a cage.”

“I would never—!”

“Shh, I know, I know. You won’t keep me here if I want to go.” You kiss his wiry hair, breathe in the scent of him: the must of things old and unknowable, the salt of the seashore, the damp decay of fallen leaves. “I’m not saying you would. I know why you don’t want me to go; you’re scared. It’s okay. It’s okay to be scared.” 

You hear his teeth grind, and then he reaches around and pulls you off of his shoulders. Settles you in his arms, instead, and you burrow against his chest. “I’m not scared,” he mutters, brushing your bangs out of your eyes with a gentle, calloused hand. You frown up at him, because that is definitely A Lie. “I just—don’t want you to be hurt.” Well, okay. Close enough. You’ll take it. 

“I know.” You catch his hand and pull it down, kiss the rough, dark skin of his palm and each of the little pads on his spindly fingers. “And I don’t want to be hurt. That’s a natural fear, but we can’t let it trap us. We never have before.” You squeeze his hand as hard as you can—which is still not very hard, but you think he gets the idea. “Let’s not start now.”

He sighs through his nose, leaning down to butt his forehead against yours. “You fucking asshole,” he mutters. “Who gave you the right to be so damn brave?”

You laugh and reach up to run your fingers through his curls, looking fondly at him. “Brave or foolhardy—take your pick.”

“Ah, I already did.” He squeezes you close, nuzzling along your temple, and you chitter softly at him. “I want to keep you here,” he admits. “I want to keep you here and never let you go. I could do it. You’re so motherfuckin’ small—it wouldn’t be hard to trap you, to keep you right where I want you for sweeps and sweeps and sweeps.”

“I know,” you murmur, trailing your claws gently along his jaw. “It’s okay to want that.”

“But I won’t do it.”

“No,” you agree, your heart warm. God, you love your palemate. “You won’t do it. Sooo—” You squirm in his arms, grinning. “Is that a yes?”

“Like you needed my permission,” he scoffs.

“So it’s a yes.” You chirp happily, pushing yourself up to pepper his face with kisses. He makes a face at you, but he’s chuckling—a rough, rocky sound that vibrates straight through his chest. “Thank youuu—”

“Yeah, whatever, motherfucker.” He paps your ass and rolls his eyes, leaning away from your kisses—but not  _ veeery  _ far away. You squirm further up so you can keep kissing, intent on smearing his facepaint all to hell just to annoy him. “Hey, quit that, you little bastard. Don’t get too excited just yet. I got a stipulation.”

“Oh?” You blow a raspberry against his cheek and he snaps his teeth playfully at you. “What’s that?”

“Want you to take Kurloz with you.”

You wince, letting yourself fall dramatically limp in his arms so he has to cradle you like the sniveling grub you are  _ very  _ capable of being. “Ooooh.”

“Yeah, figured that would burst your bubble.” He laughs, shaking his head. “C’mon, motherfucker. He’s not that bad.”

“No, no, he’s not,” you agree. “He’s great. Kurloz is great. He just—doesn’t like me very much."

“Well, he can just damn well live with it,” he says, sniffing haughtily. " How long will you be gone?”

“If we launch a passenger ship from here, with a Level II helmsman—about a perigee of traveling there and a perigee of traveling back, and maybe a perigee spent there.”

“Three perigees?” He glances at the far wall, a muscle in his jaw working as he thinks. "...could be worse."  He hums low in his chest and you place a hand over his ribs just to feel the vibration. It reminds you of a purr. He has the  _ best  _ purr, once you get him going. “I’ll see what we can do, little one.”

“Awesome.” You rattle up a thread of a purr at him and he croons, dipping his head to nuzzle along your temple. Mm. You could go for a pile, right about now. “So do you—”

There’s a sudden, pounding knock from the iron doors of the throne room, and he jumps and growls, whipping his head back up. You touch your fingers gently to his gills, breathe out a quiet shoosh, and he shakes himself off. “Who the motherfuck is it?” he bellows at the door.

The doors fly open before he gets an answer, and in stalks Kurloz. One of the heralds stumbles along behind him, panting and flustered. “Grand Highblood! My apologies. I—”

“It’s fine,” the Grand Highblood says, waving her off. “This motherfucker does what he will, even when he  _ shouldn’t.”  _ He glowers at Kurloz, and Kurloz lifts a lip and bares his teeth. “Don’t mind it. Go back to your post.”

“Sir!” the herald tilts her chin to the side in a quick, respectful gesture and then darts back out of the throne room. 

_ i don’t need a grubsitter to announce my comings and goings,  _ Kurloz hisses in your minds, his thoughts flitting with agitation. 

“Until you learn to come and go where and when you  _ belong,  _ I say you motherfucking do,” the Highblood growls. He keeps you cradled close to your chest, and if you were a few hundred sweeps younger, you suppose you would be mortified. As it is, though—eh. If Kurloz didn’t want to see you two snuggling, maybe he should have announced himself. Satisfied with your decision, you stretch and fit your head beneath the Grand Highblood’s chin. 

“Hi, Kurloz. We were just talking about you, actually,” you say. He glances at you, licking his teeth. “How do you feel about a little off-ship vacation? We’d be going to this cute little planet called Earth…”

* * *

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you have never been more terrified in your life. The gang is behind you—leaving it was horribly easy. There were no guards, Nuodel was nowhere to be seen (you try not to think about who was last with her), and the few highbloods who did glance in your direction didn’t keep their eyes on you for very long. Gamzee prowls behind you, his eyes still burning orange as you wait for the sopor to kick in. When you were leaving the gang’s base, his  _ I’m a big scary high blood  _ posturing was convenient. Now that you’re on the streets of Tontorak—

You are so painfully aware of how soft the humans around you are and how very, very sharp your palemate’s teeth have been made to be. 

“We should go back.” His voice is rough, raw. At least he’s stopped growling at everything that moves. You ignore him, picking your way down the emptiest sidewalks you can find. You’d both scrubbed the blood away from your skin and put on clean clothes before you left, but you still don’t fancy the idea of being eyeballed by every human in the city. “Palemate. We should—”

“Stop calling me that,” you hiss.

“Why? It’s what you are. My palemate.”

“Trust me,” you say, your voice grim. “I know. Fortunately,  _ what  _ I am and  _ who  _ I am are two very different things.”

“Oh.” He’s quiet for a moment, and for a second, you think he’ll stay that way. Ha. Ha ha. “Karkat.”

__ “Fucking  _ what,  _ you asshole?”

“We should go back.”

You throw your head back and laugh, tears stinging at the corners of your eyes. “Oh my god—you never stop  _ joking,  _ do you? No. Absolutely not. We’re not going back, not  _ ever. _ ”

“We have to.”

“Why? Why the  _ fuck  _ should we—”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Who?”

“Nuodel. I didn’t kill her. She’ll wake up, and when she does, she’ll come after us. So we have to go back.” He explains it simply, like he thinks he’s  _ actually  _ being reasonable. Your rucksack is too heavy on your shoulders. Everything is too heavy. “Karkat? Are you listening?”

“I heard you.”

“So are we going to—”

“No.”

“But Nuodel—”

“Let her come,” you say, your voice hard. Gamzee makes a soft, uncertain sound, and you whirl around to glare at him. His eyes are paler, now. His shoulders hunch under the weight of your fury. “What? You’re telling me you could strangle one of our friends, but you couldn’t  _ kill that bitch?” _

  
“I—Karkat—”

“Shut up. I don’t care what you want. We’re  _ leaving.”  _ You stomp forward, hear him hesitate and then move after you. “If you can’t protect us from Nuodel, I will, so don’t fucking worry about it. Besides, how the fuck is she going to find us across the whole country?”

“Our friends—”

“You don’t get to worry about  _ our friends  _ right now.”

There’s silence behind you. And then, quietly: “Okay, brother.”

You lead him through the city and you do not speak. The bus station is mercifully empty this late at night, and the bus driver is the most helpful person in this whole crummy excuse of a night. She drives the two of you to the airport and explains the shitty complexities behind purchasing a ticket and boarding. If you combine your monthly stipend from the gang, along with Gamzee’s, and the money you’d been saving for a couch (you’d been getting sick of only lounging on your pile), you have just enough for two tickets to Seattle, Washington. From there, John has agreed to pick the two of you up and drive you back to his hive. 

You spend three hours sitting nervously in the airport as it grows more and more crowded. Gamzee finally manages to get himself settled down, and he seems to grow—smaller. His eyes are pale as the sun, but he curls in on himself and he won’t stop trembling. You should jam. You should help him. 

You don’t.

The two of you board, and you curl up in a window seat and glare out at the runway. You’ve never taken off in a plane before, but the event is significantly less exciting than taking off in a spaceship. Soon, the two of you are gliding high above the clouds. You don’t think you’ve ever felt lower than you do right now, though.

Three hours into the flight, Gamzee reaches for your hand. You let him lace your fingers together and you don’t let go.

“You should sleep,” you mutter, glancing at him. He looks like shit. The cuts on his face had barely stopped bleeding when you yanked him out of the base and onto a plane flying across the entire fucking country, and he’s got purple blood crusting across them. Your guilt resurges in a sickening wave, and you lean your head against the window and breathe.

“I don’t think I can,” he whispers apologetically, his eyes downcast. “Sorry, little brother. I’m sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry—”

“Fuck. Not right now, not right now, shh—” You pap his leg as his voice cracks, a formal little pat-pat, and he shudders and squeezes his eyes shut. “Wait. Just—wait, please.”

So he waits. It’s another four hours before the two of you land, and you are cramped and exhausted and in a fucking  _ pissy  _ mood. Gamzee, somehow, manages to look even more miserable. You exit the plane as quickly as you can, groaning as you stretch out your legs and pop your back. The time has shifted and rolled backwards, and it’s still early in the morning here. You take a seat on one of the benches, resigning yourself to wait for John. You expect Gamzee to sit next to you, but he doesn’t. Instead, he hesitates in front of you. 

“Karkat,” he whispers. “Please.  _ Please.”  _

You glance up at him and his eyes are feverish with tears, with panic, and you let out a soft, broken breath. “Yeah,” you murmur, standing up and taking his hand. “Yeah, okay. Come on.”

* * *

Your name is John Egbert and  _ holy shit your friends are in trouble.  _ Karkat trolled you way, way too late at night and asked if your offer still stood—which, of course it did! But it was so totally sudden that you’re convinced something has to be seriously wrong, especially since the two of them were so determined not to visit you. You woke your dad up right away, frantic and buzzing with excitement, and rapidly explained the situation to him, and then explained again because he was still groggy and half-asleep and maybe you were talking a little too fast.

You remember being a kid and bringing home lost animals—tiny, mewling kittens and scrawny puppies, squirming squirrel pups and broken-winged birds. You’d look up at your dad, your eyes as big as you could make them, and he would fold for you. He always would. He’d help you nestle them up in cardboard boxes, with newspapers or blankets or warm water bottles. He’d help you make little dishes of food and water, and you’d let you hold the box as he drove you to the vet’s to give them to someone who could help. 

You give him the same big eyes now, and yep, there he goes—folding for you. 

“What will they need?” he asks, rubbing his eyes and fumbling to put his slippers on. “We can go buy some things while they’re on their way here.”

“Um—” You scratch the back of your neck, frowning. What  _ do  _ trolls need? Terezi is the only troll you’ve ever really interacted with, and she mostly takes care of herself. “Food.  Sopor, I guess, although we don’t have any ‘coons—doesn’t it come in a patch form, too? Maybe we can get that. Crap. I don’t know what they’re bringing with them.”

“Well, we can get a few groceries and then, if they need more, we’ll go shopping again later. Sound fair?”

You nod earnestly, racing off to get dressed as your father does the same. You both meet in the living room once you’re ready, and you’re practically bouncing on your toes in your excitement. He drives the two of you to Walmart, and you fill your cart with all sorts of things. Once you’ve purchased it, you drive back home and stock your fridge and cabinets. Dad goes into cleaning-for-guests mode, which includes vacuuming, dusting, mopping, lighting candles, and reorganizing every item of furniture that exists within the confines of your household. 

You clean your own room, too, making sure it looks nice and neat and cheerful. Will they want to watch movies? Or play video games? Or meet your friends? Ooooh you’re so excited! And also worried! Really worried!

The two of you load up in the car shortly before dawn, heading for Seattle. Your dad’s favorite music—soft, simple jazz—hums from the car radio. You’re half-tempted to change it to something more exciting, but you figure Karkat and Gamzee won’t want anything too exciting right now. 

“So,” Dad as he drives, the miles falling away behind you. “These friends of yours. Tell me about them, again?”

“Their names are Karkat Vantas and Gamzee Makara,” you start, because you know your dad has heard all about your friends before, but you’ve never given him an intensive run-down on each of them, and you’re fairly certain he’s never seen them before. “Karkat’s the short one with the little horns. He acts like an asshole most of the time, but he’s actually pretty sweet. He can be really grouchy, but don’t let it bother you. Most of the time he’s just saying things he doesn’t mean.”

“He sounds like quite a character,” your dad says, smiling.

“He is. He’s super funny, especially when you push his buttons.” You grin mischievously and Dad arches an eyebrow at you. “Not that I  _ will.  _ Yet, anyway. The other one is Gamzee—he’s the tall one with the big horns. He’s super chill and laid-back, and he’s always really nice. You’ll love him.”

“If you say so,” Dad says, his voice laced with amusement. “So what are you boys going to do once we get home?”

You frown, thinking about that. They’ll probably want time to settle in, but  _ after that— _ you go on to regale Dad with all of yours ideas, and he listens and nods and smiles. 

When you reach the airport, the sun breaks over the horizon. A pair of birds wheel high above your heads until, at long last, they settle into a nest near the edge of the roof. 

* * *

Your name is Gamzee Makara, and you are currently sobbing your lungs out in the restroom of an enormous airport in Seattle, Washington. Your palemate (Karkat, his name is  _ Karkat)  _ holds you tightly, the both of you crammed into the corner of a toilet stall. The floor is sticky and the air smells like filtered water and toilet cleaner and strangers and piss and nothing is familiar and Nuodel is going to  _ kill  _ you and you’re a  _ monster you’re a monster you hurt your friend you hurt Equius you’re a  _ monster—

“Shh, shh, shh, Gamzee,  _ shhh,  _ you’re okay,” Karkat whispers against your hair, rocking you slowly back and forth. His voice sounds choked. You think maybe he’s crying, too, and that just makes you cry harder. You ruined it. You ruined everything, you let your best friend see what a motherfucking monster you really are and now he  _ hates  _ you, and he  _ should.  _ How could you?  _ How could you?  _ “Hush, hush-hush-hush. We’re alright, we’re safe.”

“— _ hurt  _ him, could have  _ killed him,  _ I—fuck,  _ fuck—” _

“Yeah,” Karkat murmurs, stroking a hand down the back of your neck. “Yeah, you fucked up, Gamzee. You hurt Equius, and that’s—fuck, that’s not okay. I am pissed as all hell about that. But—” He takes a deep, shuddering breath and you feel his lips brush your horn. “We’re gonna be okay. We’ll make it okay again.”

_ “How?”  _ you wail, your claws tearing desperately at your jacket. “Can’t ever make shit like that okay again,  _ can’t ever,  _ they’re never gonna trust me again and they  _ shouldn’t,  _ I’m a fuck-up, such a fucking piece of shit,  _ I hurt them—” _

“Hey, hey,  _ that’s enough.”  _ His warm little hands cup your face, force you to look up at him, only—only you’re not really seeing so well, anymore. “Yeah, you fucked up. You fucked up  _ big time.  _ Those were some major league fuck-ups back there _.  _ And I don’t know what’s going to make it okay again, but it’s definitely not flipping your shit and wallowing in your own self-loathing, got it? So stop. Besides—” He scowls at you, running a thumb over one of the cuts on your face. “I don’t like it when my moirail beats himself up, so quit it. That’s an order.”

You want to laugh, but it comes out as a strangled whine, and Karkat lets you bury your face against his chest again. He rubs his hands over your back as you cry, leans his head between your horns and shooshes, warm and soft. “Anyway,” he murmurs, tracing little diamond-shapes across your back with his claws. “It wasn’t all your fault. I should’ve been able to calm you down. I should’ve been able to stop you. And I should  _ never  _ have let Nuodel put her filthy claws on you.”

You shake your head frantically. “No. No, no, no, wasn’t any of this your fault, best friend, don’t even think it—”

“Yes it  _ was,”  _ he hisses. He reaches for your locket, holds it tightly in his fist. “Shut up. This is not me being a self-loathing piece of shit, this is the  _ truth.  _ I am your moirail.  _ I  _ am responsible for keeping you safe, from others and  _ for _ others.  _ I  _ am responsible for taking care of you, for better or for worse, fucker. And you know what I did, when I got scared? I let them take you away from me. I let them  _ ruin  _ you, and I see now what a fucking  _ mistake  _ that was. But let me tell you something—” He presses his forehead to yours, his eyes burning fiercely. “I am  _ never  _ letting  _ anyone  _ take you from me again, no matter what.”

“Best friend, no,  _ no,  _ hey. It wasn’t all your fault.” You touch his face, desperate. “Please. Please, it wasn’t all on you. I wanted to be with Nuodel. I  _ chose  _ that, because I—” You lower your head, swallowing hard, your shame weighing heavy around your throat. “Because I didn’t want to hurt you. Because I didn’t want you to see what kind of a  _ monster  _ I am without the soper, but now you have, and if you don’t want to deal with it I understand, I do, I—”

“Are you even  _ listening?”  _ Karkat snaps, putting his hands on your shoulders and shaking you hard enough your teeth clack. Your tongue bleeds. “I  _ just  _ told you that  _ nobody  _ is ever taking you from me again.  _ I want you.  _ I still want you. I know being off of sopor is horrible for you, and I know—I know what you can do, now. And I am scared.” He laughs, a choked little thing. “I am so  _ fucking  _ scared, you have no idea. But we’re gonna make it work, okay? We’ll figure something out.”

And when he says it like that, so determined and so vehement, you almost believe him. 

“I’m still sorry,” you whisper, touching his face—soft, reverent. “For this. For everything. For hurting Equius, and scaring Nepeta, and calling you—calling you  _ freak  _ and  _ lowblood  _ and—and—”

“Oh, yeah. I’m pissed about that, too.” He knocks his forehead against yours, tangling his fingers in your hair. “You fucker. I told you to stay out of my head unless I wanted you there, and I get enough  _ lowblood  _ shit from everyone else without getting it from you, too. So—don’t do that again or I’ll bite you. But apology accepted, I guess. Bitch.” He nuzzles his nose against yours and you let out a watery laugh, shutting your eyes as tears roll down your cheeks and sting at your cuts. 

“Deal, best friend.” You squeeze him close, careful of his new wounds—he’s got scratches on his good shoulder and a helluva bruise on his jaw, split open near the middle. You should be angry about how he got it, but you don’t ever want to feel angry ever again. 

Karkat’s phone chirps softly, and he squirms around just enough to glance at it. “Right, okay—John’s here, so we’ll have to finish this later. Are you gonna be okay?”

You wipe your eyes, nodding. “Yeah. Fuck yeah, best friend.”

“Good. C’mere.” He leads you out of the stall and to the sink, and he carefully washes your sore eyes and the edges of your cuts. “Okay. Paint back on—try to hide the cuts as much as you can. We don’t want to freak John’s lusus out. And whatever you do,  _ don’t  _ tell them anything bad, got it?”

“Great,” you mumble, your ears drooping. “I hate secrets.”

“Hey, they’re a necessary evil. If John’s lusus thinks we’re dangerous, he’ll kick us out even faster—and if either one of them knew we were illegal, they could report us. So we’re legal immigrants, okay? We were in a foster family but they were a piece of shit and—” He waves a hand at your face. “Oh god how are we gonna explain that. You were? Mauled by a bear?”

“Why tell them anything?” you ask, carefully applying your paint, making sure to pack it into and around your cuts so they don’t look so goddamn  _ noticeable _ . “If they ask, we don’t gotta answer. We can just say as we’d rather not motherfuckin’ talk about it, right?”

“Huh.” Karkat narrows his eyes, chewing that one over a second. “Maybe you’re right. We’ll just—say it’s too traumatic or something. That’s not a terrible idea, shitstain.”

You brighten slightly, his praise driving back the aching cold in your chest some. “Thanks, brother. There.” You captchalogue your paints. “All done.”

Karkat takes a deep breath, then glances up at you. There’s a stubborn set to his jaw, a fire in his eyes you do love to see. “You ready for Earth: Round Two?”

You lean down, kiss the top of his head and try to smile for him. “Fuck yeah, best friend. Let’s do it.”

* * *

Your name is Paul Egbert, although you pride yourself on being known as Dad, and your family is about to get a little bit bigger and a whole lot weirder. (You wouldn’t have it any other way.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. so there we go. "migration" is officially over! and what a journey it has b e e n. thank you so much to everyone who read and commented or left kudos!! i appreciate you guys so much, you have no idea! your support means the world <333 and worry not! this isn't the last time we'll be seeing our boys. this story will continue in a second fic, which should hopefully be posted soon! it's already been written out and just needs to undergo some editing. i am going to be taking a little bit of a break before that, however, so it might be a month or so before the next fic sees the light of day; i hope to see you all there for the next leg of the journey!! thanks again for everything!!!
> 
> yours truly,  
> snip


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